White Shadow
by AKAAkira
Summary: Well, Orange Star needed more COs. And both Train Heartnet and Eve looked like potential candidates…
1. Prologue

**Summary**: Well, Orange Star needed more COs. And both Train Heartnet and Eve looked like potential candidates…

Takes place after both Advance Wars Dual Strike and Black Cat ends.

**Disclaimer: Advance Wars belongs to Intelligent Systems and Black Cat belongs to Kentaro Yabuki. I own absolutely nothing in relation to either works, except for the idea to mesh them together.**

* * *

Prologue

"_It was the name, then?" the quiet, young, and wistful man asked._

"_Names are important," the black-haired, red-eyed woman responded softly. "In some cases, the name can affect the people around you. Your name obviously carried an enormous burden. I'm just surprised it took so long for something this drastic to happen."_

"_No, you're not," was the answer. "You claim that everything is hitsuzen. I'm sure you foresaw it happening. Whether you didn't help because you didn't want to or you couldn't is the only thing I'm wondering about."_

_The Dimensional Witch took a moment before answering. "Just because something will happen doesn't mean I'm not surprised that that was the result. As for your question, I couldn't help unless it is the wishes of someone else. In your case, you still thought you could pull everything together, and so you never thought to ask another person for help."_

_The night was still and serene. No wind sang through the traditional Japanese house, and although it was spring it was slightly cold. The moon lay in the sky, uncovered by clouds. Once upon a time it was pretty, perhaps beautiful – now it was just unforgiving._

"_I have a wish," the man said._

"_If you didn't, you wouldn't be here."_

"_Can you grant it?"_

"_If you can pay the price."_

"_Such as?"_

"_One of the prices will be your freedom. For you, freedom is worth even more than your life. If you want me to grant your wish, you need to give me your freedom – for the next couple of years, at least."_

_A hint of surprise lit up in the desolate eyes of the former Commanding Officer. It was immediately replaced by a sad acceptance. "Take it."_

_The Dimensional Witch nodded. "The other price I require is your story."_

_The man looked up, his face harsh. "You already know it."_

"_But _you _refuse to look at it," the woman countered. "This is the greatest failure you ever had in your life, but your mind still refuses to accept that it happened; your pride of success, and to a lesser degree, the human mind's denial mechanism, prevents you from doing so. What you need to do for me is to look at it, and say truthfully, 'it was my fault', or you will never admit that it occurred. In other words, I want you to give up a piece of your pride."_

_It was a cruel price. Only memories came close to the value of pride, and the witch had only asked for memory twice in her career. This was the first time she asked for pride, and it clearly represented the value of the man's wish._

_He was silent for a moment. Two moments. Then he began to speak._


	2. Recruit

**Disclaimer: Advance Wars belongs to Intelligent Systems and Black Cat belongs to Kentaro Yabuki. I own absolutely nothing in relation to either works, except for the idea to mesh them together.**

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Chapter One – Recruit

My name is Jake. No last names, just Jake. Being in a war strips you of your last name, for security reasons.

I'm a commanding officer of the Orange Star army. Number two in Omega land, number six out of all Orange Star COs. And that's not such a big drop, 'cause really I'm last out of the Orange Star COs either way.

So anyways, today I was just chilling out, listening to hip-hop, sipping cola and all, but I take my job seriously, so in front of me were these three reports. Actually, the reports are the one reason I _don't_ like my job. Who wants to sit at an old desk and just look over reports and play around with the computer when you can just ride a tank or a recon outside and enjoy all that nature could throw at you? The only other CO who sorts through reports is Colin, a Blue Moon CO, and that's only 'cause he's barely over enlisting age. I suppose Rachel only put me here to keep me out of her way.

Yeah, Rachel. About her. Recently I think she's hitting on me. That could be one of the reasons she stuck me here. Well, she's pretty and all, but she's my superior and there's really no dating on work, especially not army work. And I really don't appreciate what she did to me right now. While I sort through all these papers, she gets to ride in the very borders of Orange Star territory, keeping peace and all and looking for signs of Wh –

Someone yanked off my headphones and yelled in my ear, "COMMANDER JAKE!"

"Hey, chill, Corporal Havoc. What's up?"

"Intruders! Here in HQ!"

Well, that made me regret not paying attention to my surroundings.

I grabbed my gun, a semi-automatic pistol given to me by Grit, checked it for loads, and found it half-empty.

To the next person I saw: "Private Falman! Mind getting me some ammo from the storage?"

"Yessir."

Now I started hearing repeated gunshots, and by the sounds of it they were coming from the mess hall. I checked my firearm again, and then I asked the corporal: "How many intruders managed to get in?"

"So far, there seems to be only two."

I blinked. "Only two? Then what's with all this gunfire?"

In response, Havoc kicked open the door to the mess hall, and motioned for me to peek inside, which I did.

The first impression that I got was that the intruders, situated in the far corner of the room, were only around fifteen years old, and the second impression that I got was that they were seriously owning fifty men. Then I realized that the guy, unlike the girl, was actually an adult, but seemed like a child because of his seemingly easygoing and lazy manner. Well, as easygoing and lazy as he can be while casually owning fifty, no, _eighty_, of my men.

Even as I watched, he hefted an Orange Star standard gun, shot at the floor and – well, the bullet ricocheted off the floor, hit the startled Private Fury's gun at an angle that sent it flying into the air, when another ricochet bullet hit it and fall neatly into the marksman's hand. He then repeated the process on Private Brosh and Private Breda, stealing both men's guns instead of bothering to reload.

And then I saw Captain Hawkeye, one of our best snipers, take aim from behind an overturned table. _Nice job_, I thought silently.

Except the marksman saw her too. He shot straight at her, and the next thing I knew the Captain's sniper blew up, giving her a good singe on her hair. Unless I was seeing things while under the influence of shell shock, he fired a bullet from a _pistol_ straight into the sniper's barrel.

Whoa.

The second intruder is even more amazing than the first. She keeps on materializing decorated shields, staves and guns out of nowhere, using the staff to keep back any Orange Star soldier that tries to run up at him, blocking all bullets with the shield, and forcing the my wary men to duck behind desks with the seemingly infinite ammo in that gun of hers. I wondered where she hid those things.

Then, I saw Major Mustang, our grenade specialist, throw a can of something – from the looks of the stuff that started leaking out I guessed it was tear gas. That was pretty smart.

And then the girl's hair stretched and smothered the can and its leaking contents. In the time it took for me to blink and take in this strange new revelation the can must have disappeared somewhere, because when the hair retreated nothing was left on the ground.

And all this while, the number of reinforcements was increasing, coming in through all the other doors. There must be about a hundred of my men in the mess hall by now. And even then, the two intruders weren't even increasing the tempo they had from the beginning – at least, nothing I noticed. Whoever they were, they were good, _really_ good.

Well, time for me to step in and lead my men.

"STOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOP!"

That was me.

Instant silence followed. About one hundred and twenty two mostly-incredulous faces turned to me.

I coughed after my loud outburst, slightly self-conscious that some of my men were looking mutinous; one wrong move could completely undermine their trust in me. After a moment of thinking, I used the simplest method: walking up to the two intruders, I said brightly, "Yo, wassup?"

The girl rolled her eyes, her enormous shield disappearing. The man snickered, tossing aside the guns he stole from my men, and casually raised his hand. "Hey there," he said with a grin. "Nice reception you prepared."

I was almost dumbstruck into silence. From his manner, and his smile, I could tell he figured out what I was planning as soon as I started. "Look, I'm really sorry I forgot to tell my men you were dropping by," I said in a slightly more loud volume than I generally use. I could hear fairly quiet groans behind my back. "But thanks for coming. You were whupping my men real good, they could use an exercise like that once in –"

And then one of the newer recruits stepped forward. "Commander, these are _intruders_! One of them had a _gun_ when he entered the mess hall! No one except –"

"Commanding Officers," I said, playing the only card I had against this, pointing to the two strangers in front of me, "are allowed to enter the mess hall with weaponry, yes, I know the rules better than you do, Private Walls."

The private paled. "Forgive me," he muttered, stepping back.

Beaming, I turned back to the strangers in front of me. "Right, now that we're done with the pleasantries, we can go see Rachel now. You know, for the issuing of uniforms and stuff." Raising my voice again, I said pointedly: "Speaking of Rachel, she might wonder why the mess hall is living up to its name."

In less than ten seconds, the mess hall was empty.

"What, no one wants to take responsibility?"

* * *

"That was insane."

"I knew what I was doing."

"Did you really? What if the new 'CO's happened to be clones, or even worse, assassins?"

Behind me, the man chuckled.

"No Orange Star, Blue Moon, Yellow Comet, Green Earth, or Black Hole clones that we know of are _that_ strong. Both of them could easily have annihilated at least fifty men by themselves. But they _didn't_, right? So they can't be assassins either."

"You were ready to put your life on an uninformed _assumption_?"

"Well, yeah. You're the one who said we 'must be ready to give our life for our country'. Just like how I'd like to give my life for innocent people. Not so different, the principle at least."

"It was still stupid!" Rachel yelled, finally losing her patience. "You want to incorporate into our forces two untested strangers and bypass the CO selection tests?"

"Isn't that what you did with me?"

"That was different! You were recommended by another CO!"

"And now, I'm recommending these guys. So no, it's not that different."

Rachel growled, a surprisingly unfeminine sound, even for her voice. "I hope you understand that if _anything_ goes awry, it's on your head."

"Vicious, Rachel. I like it."

Finally, she took a deep breath and let it out, acknowledging defeat. From the scent of freshmint, she must've been chewing gum.

Abruptly she turned to the slightly indifferent twosome. "Names and abilities."

"Train Heartnet, ma'am," the man said, "and my friend here is Eve. What can I do? Well, I can shoot bullets from this baby," he tapped the gun strapped on his thigh, "and I guarantee a hit anywhere on the body in a two-mile radius, provided I have a decent bullet."

I winced. Judging from Rachel's mood, I guessed what was about to happen.

Rachel opened up her own personal gun and tossed him one bullet. "That's the best shot money can get around here. Now live up to your story, go to the window and shoot the back door of our current temporary campaign HQ, which is one point six five two miles north forty-two point nine degrees west."

Yow. Rachel was in a _very_ bad mood.

Train just grinned, pointed his gun at the half-open window, and pulled the trigger.

"Bang," he said, right after the real thing went off.

A hole was smoking on the wall.

"Uh, dude, was that supposed to happen?"

Rachel just looked at her compass for a moment, and then went over to the phone.

"Sami? Can you go check the back door and look for a bullet hole? … Just wondering … Okay, thanks."

Hanging up, she turned to me and said grudgingly, "I suppose he passed."

"Sweet! High five, Train!"

"Not now!" Rachel snapped, and I drew back my open hand. She turned to Eve. "And what can you do?"

"I have nanomachines injected in my body. I can change the shape and composition of my body and anything I inject my nanomachines into."

I blinked. Rachel blinked. It wasn't every day that I met with – forgive me – a human science experiment.

"I think she's telling the truth," I assured Rachel when it was obvious she doubted the story. "When Major Mustang threw tear gas, Eve's hair stretched, covered it up, then the next second it was all gone. I didn't know what happened then, but I think now it was shredded or decomposed into individual atoms or molecules."

Eve nodded in confirmation; Rachel nodded much more slowly. As great a leader as she is, she was still unnerved by Eve's indifference to the nanomachines. I could tell she didn't quite understand why such a young child was experimented on and why Eve didn't want them out of her body. She also didn't ask whether using them so much could have bad side effects.

I was having a hard time grasping the implications myself. Who was mad enough to try to test theoretical weaponry on a child? And what was the person who conducted experiment going to do with the successful technology, what did he or she do to Eve, the success story? For the first time, I was wondering if having Eve as a CO was a bad idea. A strong child was one thing, look at Colin: but a strong child with a questionable psyche…

Nevertheless, Rachel didn't question Eve, and straightened her shoulders again.

"Very well, Train and Eve, you will now listen carefully. You now hold office in the Orange Star army, the greatest military force of the world. Each and every decision you make will change the fate of many persons under you, the civilians you strive to work for, and to a lesser degree, the entire world. You will now bear this responsibility on your shoulders, and take pride in you work with each and every day. You shall not complain for any reason, you will not slack off for any reason, and _you shall never be afraid to give your life for the country_. Understood?"

Generally a CO recruit would be bristling with pride by now. The girl, Eve, just nodded. The man, Train – well, he looked like he was daydreaming.

"UNDERSTOOD?" Rachel yelled into his face.

"Wha – oh, yeah, sure."

I stifled a snicker. While Rachel was rummaging around her desk for badges of office Train whispered to me, "Does she do that to every new recruit?"

"Yeah, but she's much more softer than her sister. I hear Nell's little speech takes up sixteen paragraphs."

Rachel tossed the badges to Train and Eve. Each of them caught it with almost equal altitude of grace, which I'm sure was another plus in Rachel's view.

"Take them to Hachi," Rachel ordered, "and educate them on the POWER program."


	3. POWER

**Disclaimer: Advance Wars belongs to Intelligent Systems and Black Cat belongs to Kentaro Yabuki. I own absolutely nothing in relation to either works, except for the idea to mesh them together.**

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Chapter Two – POWER

"To your front, the motor controls. It looks like a game joystick, and works the same too. And to your left are the general-use buttons; the green one is for changing the filtering of the periscopes, the blue one for the distress signal, and if you press the yellow one…"

The hatch closed. I sighed and manually pulled it open.

"I didn't mean you should _actually_ press it, Train. I'm just hoping you'll remember these without trying each and every single one out."

"But then where's the fun in it?"

"It won't be fun anymore if you accidentally press the primary ammo button and blow a hole in Hachi's shop."

"Oh, don't worry, I know that the button for the main cannon is this red button over here…"

"No, Train, that's the emergency evacuation button that you should've known already if you actually listened to what I said two minutes ago."

Train, crammed into the inside of the tank, said unconvincingly, "I knew that."

Squatting down by the hatch and peeking into it, I replied: "I doubt you do."

I didn't have a similar problem with Eve. She seemed to have photographic memory (Was that another direct effect from the nanomachines? I wondered.) so she was just quietly reading from the operator's manual, which was tasteless by the manufacturer's standards.

Right now, though, she gave me a suggestion. "Jake, tell Train that if he doesn't get them all right all of his milk is gone."

"WHAT?" Train yelled. (Although I had a funny feeling that it was meant to be a caterwaul.) "No, no, no, that is DIRTY! Jake, you can't do that. I absolutely refuse."

"Uh, dude, until you earn your keep, you're living off _my_ budget. I can feed you pretty much whatever I want."

"Okay, fine, I'm _begging_ you not to do it! Come on, don't be such a devil!"

"In that case, you should start listening."

Train grumbled audibly for the next few seconds.

"I'll take that as a yes."

The hatch closed again.

"Well, at least he remembered that one," Eve said, closing her book with a pronounced _snap_.

"Wow, you're done that book already?" I jumped down from the tank.

"I wanted to spend my summer vacation training for and taking the sweeper's exam," Eve said sourly. "So of course I wanted to finish this irregularity and get back home as quickly as possible."

I winced. She was getting warmer to a sensitive subject. "Look, I'm sorry I made you play along with the 'new CO' story, but you guys really do rock. We need people like you to help defend our country."

"That's not all, is it?"

Oh, man. Can she read my mind?

"No, I can't," Eve said matter-of-factly. "Your facial expressions are just way too easy to read."

"…Oh. So what exactly do your nanomachines… well, do? Besides faking a mind-read ability, I mean?"

"Not the best capabilities. I mean, you've seen my nanomachines at work changing the molecules and structure of my body, as well as other things that I send my nanomachines into, but I can't, say, _control_ somebody with it because the nanomachines die out within fifteen seconds out of my body. One last thing I can do, is to hack into computers, with my nanomachines."

"Hey, that's pretty cool! And useful."

Eve smiled. "Thanks," she said.

Wow. She was really cute like that.

"So how exactly did we get here?"

I winced, again. Dang, I thought she had forgotten that little detail.

Eve continued, "The only thing both Train and I seem to remember is, one minute he was talking to Sven, and the next minute we were in a cafeteria with uniformed men eating, and next we were in some sort of shootout. Besides that, I don't believe I've ever heard of the country of "Orange Star", and the geographical location of this country, and its surroundings, are unfamiliar to me. Not to mention, there's not a lot of capitalist countries that I know of that allows joining the military at age fifteen, and certainly not without a citizenship to said country."

"Citizenship? That's an unfamiliar word. What's it mean?"

Eve ignored my comment, and looked at me straight in the eyes. "Did we somehow move to a country, even a different planet? Or is this a totally different dimension?"

"Well, that's, uh, confidential…"

"To?"

"CO's."

And then I realized the stupidity of what I just said.

"Okay, okay, I'll tell you," I said hastily before Eve could comment. I sighed, and then knocked on the tank's side – a spot where Train should hear the echo inside. "Train? You should listen up, this concerns you too."

A smaller hatch opened, and out popped a small but powerful speakerphone. "I'm all yours," he said.

He was coming along nicely.

"Alright, so this is sorta what happened. Earlier this morning, before you guys dropped in, I was reading and sorting reports, and three turned out to be of Level-1 importance. The first one was really strange. It said something like, 'About a week ago Commander Javier of Green Earth was defending the borders of his country when suddenly the enemy CO activated an unknown weapon. Sir Javier was somehow transported into the main HQ of Yellow Comet, where he was placed under arrest for trespass, although he was released very shortly. When he returned to his battlefield, he found that Commander Jess had managed to repel the enemy invasion force, and also secured the weapon used to transport Sir Javier over six hundred kilometres away, though it was damaged by the enemy CO in an attempt to conceal its mysterious designs. As of now, it is being studied by Green Earth scientists, and Green Earth has sent a warning to the other countries of the potential use of this weapon.'"

"An interspatial transporter," said Eve immediately. "And, if this is the weapon you believe brought us here… and interdimensional transporter."

"Right on. My guess is that the enemy managed to further the technology somehow, to the point that it can pull other people into this dimension, in addition to moving the CO's around this world. There seems to be a limit, though, in the interspatial transportation, so there's also likely a limit in the interdimensional transportation – like, a specific location and only maybe two people at a time."

"Just our luck," Eve said, again sourly.

"Hey, both of us got lucky. You could've been accidentally transported right above the sea, or right inside the crater of a volcano. And to us, you guys are pretty much godsend. We can probably wipe the enemy fifty times faster and easier because of you guys."

"I guess I can take that as a compliment…for now," Eve said. "But does this also mean…"

"That the only way back for you is to acquire one of the 'transportation' devices? Probably, yeah."

The mood was… well, not downhearted, but much more annoyed.

"I am seriously reconsidering my aversion to killing," Eve said, gritting her teeth. "When I get my hands on whoever happen to work that machine…"

Wow, she was really cute like that, too. "That's the spirit!"

"No loitering!" an angry voice barked out.

I jumped. I forgot about Hachi! "Sure, sure!" I called hastily. "Just gimme a moment to explain!"

The response was laconic. "Make it quick!"

"So," I said, turning back to Train and Eve. (More accurately, a tank and Eve.) "You guys have no idea what the POWER Program is, right?"

Eve shook her head. Train shook the barrel of the tank left and right, accidentally knocking an SMG from a model soldier.

"It's not a very hard concept. The background of it is, generally we use titanium-aluminum alloys to try to create a metal that is as light, but durable as possible. The problem was, aluminum is getting harder and harder to find and refine, and we don't exactly have a method to arrange the atoms with science so the government was seriously considering dividing some for use in the economic sector and the remainder in the military. That would've been a very bad handicap, so of course there was opposition to the movement – not that anyone could really have done something, of course, without an alternate solution.

"So that's what Commander Andy did. He came up with another solution, one where _all_ of the titanium and aluminum mined and refined would come along to the military sector. Basically, what would happen is, we get our tank and ammo and guns and such, and whenever anything breaks off, whenever we collect whatever scrap pieces of metal that was left behind by the enemy, we sell it all to manufacturing plants, where it would be re-refined, and sold again for economic uses. This way, the military gets all the metal supplies, the economy gets its metal supplies, we clean up Mother Nature's face, and, most importantly, the money we get from selling the scrap metal goes to what's called the POWER Program, where we can buy _extra_ ammo, fuel, or whatever isn't usually issued by the government! For example, I can improve the range and firepower of my tanks whenever I use my Program. And Rachel's is really bad – well, in the good way. She calls in Orange Star mechanics to tweak her units' weapons a little bit, so they're more sporadic when they're fired. That might _sound_ bad, but in reality most of them hit and they're more likely to produce a lucky hit.

"Obviously, there was more costs stuff to consider with the POWER Program. The more potentially devastating your Program is, the more of the scrap metal you have to collect and sell. Eagle of Green Earth, for example, has a really long wait before he can initiate his program, which is basically hiring more people to operate his tanks and stuff, and that allows him to move and attack twice during one day. It's fairly useful, but the wait might not really be worth it. Another problem is if your Program doesn't cost that much. If that's the case, your Program might not do the best damage. Koal and Adder of Black Hole are both really cheap, so their Program just lets their unit's movement range increase. No offensive or defensive improvement. Annoying, sure, but never truly devastating, unless you were winning to begin with. So, the best kind of Program that you could have, of course, is one that balances the costs with the effects. Any questions?"

Train asked: "What does POWER stand for?"

"It stands for the Personal Output of Well-Earned Resources. As you can see, Commander Andy just wanted the acronym and made up words on the spot to go with it. Oh, and that reminds me – after they tested out the first POWER Programs in the first world war, they added a secondary one, called a 'Super POWER'. Before you ask, Commander Andy named that one too. Basically, if you save up enough money from selling the scrap metal, you could utilize an upgraded version of your ordinary Program. Sometimes the Super POWER is completely different from your ordinary POWER program. Like, Rachel. Her Super POWER calls in, like, three whole missiles to bombard the enemy with."

Train whistled in appreciation. He forgot he was speaking into the microphone.

"Ow!" I complained as the high-pitched sound nearly killed my ears.

"Sorry!"

Eve produced a very large hammer.

"That's not needed," I said hastily, and the hammer disappeared. "So, what you guys are supposed to do right now, is, basically just look around Hachi's shop and come up with an idea of what you want to use in your POWER and Super POWER Programs."

Eve walked off. I think she was still annoyed at Train. He noticed too. "Oops," he said guiltily as he got out from the tank.

"Do the nanomachines give her superior hearing?"

"Probably, yeah."

"Well, make up to her somehow. I can't have our CO's fighting each other."

Train rolled his eyes, but I think he got the message. He walked off, too.

In the meantime, I went straight over to Hachi.

"What do you think?"

"Of your new CO's, you mean?"

"No, of the pancake I made for breakfast this morning."

"It was delicious. Tasted just like the air."

"Thank you. Seriously, though; what do you really think of our new CO's?"

Hachi sort of laughed, and put away the pen he was twirling in his hand.

"What I really think is… if they have about six days of training, they could've booted Black Hole off of Omega Land by themselves."

I didn't doubt him. They had an abnormal vibe.

"Jake!"

I looked over. Train was walking towards me with something in hand.

"This is what I want for my POWER Program. Whaddaya think?"

I looked at the object in his hand. "Are you sure? That looks a little…_too_ cheap."

Train pouted. "Fine." He put another one in his hand. "Does that make it better?"

Hachi just snickered. "Whatever you want, sonny. Jake told me about the test Rachel gave you. If you're going to do what I think you're going to do, then I know you'll be one of the best COs of all time."


	4. Test

**Disclaimer: Advance Wars belongs to Intelligent Systems and Black Cat belongs to Kentaro Yabuki. I own absolutely nothing in relation to either works, except for the idea to mesh them together.**

* * *

Chapter Three – Test

The main HQ of Orange Star had some very, _very_ weird rooms.

One of the rooms was, of course, Hachi's shop. He could generally be found there, making exchanges and taking orders from various COs and officers. But some days, he inexplicably disappeared, his whole stock with him, only to come back a week or so later. Rumour had it Andy somehow helped rig his shop so that he could move them easily to other countries and sell stuff to the other army bases, but nothing was ever proved.

Then there were the rooms that housed Andy's experiments.

"Commander Andy, as a habit, creates and maintains a lot of machinery that he's really stoked about. Examples include in the backwards-printer, spells every single word backwards, mostly for pranks. Then there's the coconut shower, he got the idea off from a coconut fragrant shampoo that said, 'extra vitamin D for the skin', except of course the coconut juice by itself doesn't do much. And of course, the most recent little invention, the cannon cannon."

"Uh, what?" Train asked.

"Basically, instead of a cannonball, that little 'masterpiece' loads an actual cannon and fires it. Something about wanting to find the terminal velocity without resorting to physics."

"Okay."

"But some of Commander Andy's inventions are actually really useful. The most important one that the army actually bought off of him is the Campaign Simulator. It stores every single battle that Orange Star, Green Earth, Blue Moon and Yellow Comet ever participated in and allows it to be gone through again. As well, it can make the battle even harder by adding extra units and such to the opposing side. It also features a PvP mode, which can be really useful for training up novices, without expending the money to buy actual stuff to fight with. This is what you two will do now; battle against each other using digital units. Your POWER programs have already been programmed into the CPU, so you can let loose."

"Dibs on the green one, Eve!"

"…Uh, Train, the colour isn't really the most important thing, ya know…"

Anyways, within seconds both Eve and Train was seated on the Campaign Simulator.

"Alrighty then. General Campaigning 101 starting now."

I turned on the console (yeah, it was based off a game system) and _voilà_, the whole thing dramatically let up in a few seconds. The logo of its original system designer, _Intelligent Systems_, flashed once in white against a black background, and then the menu popped up.

"Campaign, War Room, Versus, Survival, and Combat," Eve read out loud.

"Campaign, War Room, and Survival are mostly challenges to give to one CO at a time. Sharpens their claws some. Combat is just a little something Andy added, for a change of pace. What we're after right now is Versus."

Eve's screen, which I was watching, opened up the Versus menu when she selected the option.

_ID_? the system asked. Eve put her index on the fingerprint scanner.

_ID confirmed_. _Please select field and conditions_.

"Ignore the conditions. We're going to go standard, no fog of war or anything."

"What about the map?"

"Select random."

The computer selected a fairly nice, small map.

"That's a perfect place for head-to-head combat."

"Except for the mountains in between the HQs," Eve said.

"…Perfect. You already know how to analyze a map." Changing subject. "Alright, there are basically two kinds of maps: pre-deployment and deployment. Those terms are sorta self-explanatory, but they are important. Pre-deployment battlefields often don't have any more bases, airports or harbours to manufacture any more units. Kanbei of Yellow Comet excels at PD because his units are so overarmed and skilled, and his one drawback of having to pay extra to get those overpowered units doesn't exist in a PD map."

"But then that means in a deployment situation, he won't be as effective."

"Spot-on, Eve. Time for you to get started."

_Commands_? the system asked.

"Basically, this thing speeds up every day into a minute. It can get sorta hard to cram everything in, but after a while you'll get used to it. You generally want to start your first few days getting infantry and setting up camp, or "capturing", nearby non-allied cities. This is important; we need recruits to power up our soldiers' ranks, and we definitely need a lot of money, so we have to tax the people to support our expeditions." Catching Eve's look, I added, "Don't worry, they'll be paid back after the war."

Though now that I think about it, I think there were about two billion that we still owe to various cities around the country, and other countries besides. I didn't mention this.

"Next up, of course, is to bring in the heavier hitters to defend your capturing infantry and mechs and then to escort them to other non-allied cities to set up camp in those cities as well. Once you get enough funding, bring in the bad boys and start an assault at your opponents, and that's basically how you win. Of course, we probably won't get to the last point because of the limited number of properties and how close the HQ's are."

By the time I had finished speaking, both Train and Eve were well into their fifth day and directing all orders smoothly.

"Did you guys even hear one word I said?"

Apparently not, so I watched quietly and Eve virtually manufactured a tank and a recon. But…

"Hey, wait a minute, why didn't you attack this turn?"

Eve paused for a moment. Then she said, quietly, "I don't think it's so right to send people out to fight and die."

A hardcore humanitarian, huh. Then again, it could be just because she was a child. Although it was admirable, in this case…

It was only going to become a drag.

I struggled to find the right words to explain. This is definitely going to be a problem. "It's not like… well, it's not like you're going to, uh, _murder_ them, Eve. As a commanding officer, you have a responsibility to those under you to make sure most of them come out alive. But, you also have a responsibility to your country, to make sure any invading forces are dealt with."

Oh, crud. It wasn't working so well. I had forgotten Orange Star wasn't _her_ country, of course.

And was she feeling sorry even for the enemy forces?

Train intruded.

"Look, Eve, the thing about war is that people die. I'm sure that goes against everything that Sven and I taught you. But at the same time, these people who are going to die _want_ to go out onto the field, to make sure their enemies don't try to attack the people _they_ love, right?"

When Eve remained unresponsive, Train continued: "Think back to when Creed was assembling the Apostles of the Stars. What would happen if nothing could be done to stop them?" Without pausing, "Of course, world domination. That's something that all the sweepers were willing to _die_ to stop, Eve. Maybe you not so much, but the general idea is the same."

"…So you would let the people do the same?"

"Absolutely. It's not like even _I_ can stop all of them, and some of them will slip through to fight off an enemy army. Which is way worse than a lot of them fighting off the enemy army."

"You're willing to accept some will die?"

"If someone didn't lead the people, _all_ might die."

"…"

"Get it, Eve? The whole point of there being leaders for the army is to make sure that as many as possible _don't_ die."

"What about…_them_?"

"The enemy? Same as we deal with criminals. Try to take them alive. Sven and I have a fairly high success rate, but that's only because I'm so good. If there wasn't such a large difference of skill, it would be near impossible. The best anyone can do, is their best. You can't wish for more than that."

I could see that the hard logic had made it through to Eve. Not that she liked it, of course.

"But _this_ case it's just fake people fighting. And if you really want to make sure most, if not all, of the people involved are going to get out alive, you need some serious practice. So, you'd better give it your all or I'm taking _your_ lunch money."

That fired up Eve immediately.

"You're on," she said, and set to work.

I mouthed, _Thanks_, to Train. He winked and got back to business.

I see now that getting Eve as a CO may have been a mistake on my part. But luckily, an accepting commander and Eve's good friend had made it possible. I will make it up to them by training both Eve and myself to be one of the best commanders of Orange Star.

So, to do that…

"The four different indirect-fire units that you can have on land are piperunners, missiles, rockets, and artillery. Missiles are useless here because in only runs on GTA ammo – that is, ground to air. Piperunners are really good, but unfortunately the lack of pipes to move out to means you're only going to clog up your own bases. That leaves the artillery, which is cheaper, more mobile, and has slightly higher defences, but weaker and has smaller range, and the rocket, which is pretty much the opposite of all five of the artillery's characteristics. Here you might want a bit more artillery than rockets, because the battle's going to be really close. If you manufacture a rocket, then it might be destroyed easily if your opponent activates their POWER."

"But so long as your opponent can't get to your rockets, it's superior to artillery, right?"

"That's right. But where can you hide in this map?"

"Oh, I've a little idea."

Presumably her POWER or Super POWER Programs, of course. But I wonder what it was?

A minute later, she said, "How do you active the Program?"

Bingo. "Just call it a CO POWER," I said. "It sounds a little cooler that way."

I checked her gauge. It had a little overshoot for a POWER. So, I pressed a button.

_CO POWER activated_. The music track changed. _Code name: Angel's Wings_.

"Oh. That can be sweet."

"Very. Using a fairly advanced hovercraft technology, powered by models of the nanomachines in my body, all my land units now have a movement cost of ½, and can travel over mountains. Fairly expensive, but worth it." Saying that, she directed a couple of her rockets _into_ the mountains, deep enough that Train will definitely have some trouble getting rid of, whether by infantry, mech, or indirects.

On the other side of the console, Train exclaimed "What the heck!"

"Oh, that's really sweet, Eve. This means that you have Train's bases covered in the rockets' range, and in the next few turns you can keep on hammering them as soon as they're manufactured. The disadvantage I see here, though, is that once they're in, they can't get out until you activate your POWER again."

"That's right," Eve confirmed as on the other side Train desperately tried to get rid of the rockets.

"Does this also affect ships and planes?"

"Yes. Ships can now travel on land, the turn when my CO POWER is on, though it has that restriction you mentioned earlier. Airplanes can now also travel over pipelines, though it can't land on them."

"Sweet. That's really cool."

"Thank you."

I directed my attention back to Train.

"Hey Train! If _you_ lose, your lunch money goes to Eve!"

"Okay, now you're asking for it!" Train declared. "I wanted to save up for a Super POWER, but oh well. Get ready to get beaten, Eve!" Saying that, he pressed a button.

The _wrong_ button.

"Uh, Train…you just deleted the Mid tank you worked so hard to make."

"What the…"

Eve definitely wasted no time on small talk. She used the opportunity to go all out and send every single one of her units in, routing the rest of Train's lacking virtual army, and in one and a half minutes the outcome was obvious.

"Looks like we have a winner!" I announced, grinning.

Eve looked quite pleased with herself. "I guess I'll treat myself to some ice cream today, then."

And Train? He was just staring at the screen in shock, his mouth hanging wide open, not even moving. For a moment I was afraid he would actually die of shock. At last, he uttered four words:

"That…was just stupid."

* * *

Another weird room in HQ was the room given to Lash.

I've been in there only once. And that once was plenty good enough. There were toys scattered around the whole place, whether it was stuffed toys, action figures, little portable video games like those "Game & Watch" series. There were Tranformers, Leggos, plushies, and – fairly creepily – these plastic babies that could open or close their eyes, depending on how you hold them.

Pretty much all of them were broken or ripped to shreds.

It was technically her lab as well, so there was also wires, screws, nuts, files, and mice (the computer kind) scattered here and there.

So I really don't want to go there. But unfortunately, Rachel ordered me to go in. I mean, come on. Why couldn't she have ordered Lash to come out?

Oh wait. That's right; Lash had physically hijacked the PA system and her telephone to expand her limited computer's capabilities. So of course, nothing to tell her to come out unless someone went in in the first place.

…Anyways.

Once I arrived at her door I decided I'll go the polite way. I knocked on her door and said, "Excuse me?"

There was no answer.

"Uh…Lash? It's me. Jake. Can I come in?"

Cautiously I opened the door.

SPLAT!

"Gah!" I yelled, pulling off some kinda _gunk_ off my face.

The culprit in question was doubled up on the floor, laughing her lungs out.

"Very funny, Lash. What was that?"

A hiccup later, Lash straightened up and giggled, "Tee-hee! You sure you want to know?"

"Actually, yes, I do, in case this thing is LETHAL!"

"Don't worry, it wasn't. So, whatcha here for?"

"Hey, aren't you going to tell me what it is?"

"Nope! See-cret!"

I decided not to press the point. "Well, Rachel told me to come here to wring out some more information about Black Hole out of you."

"Persistent, that little girl."

"She's older than you are. Anyways, what have the soldiers been telling you about the current war?"

As a former Black Hole CO, she wasn't allowed to command our officers, and was confined to her room.

"Nothing much. Only told me they were much harder to fight off than they were before."

"Well, I don't suppose you know about…another, smaller faction within Black Hole?"

Lash made the connection in a second.

"Nope!" she exclaimed, toying with me.

I sighed. And I held up a piece of paper and showed it to her. "Look, Lash. This is a classified report. I'm probably going against standing orders just showing this to you. I received it this morning: it's a Level-1 report, meaning it's really, really important. It says something like: 'The current enemy army uses techniques that are similar, but distinctly different, from the recently decimated Black Hole army. They are led by a CO unknown to current databases; this CO's battle style and POWERs are confirmed different from the known Black Hole COs Adder, Flak, Jugger, Koal, and Kindle; they are different from the former Black Hole COs Lash, Hawke, Sturm, and Von Bolt; and they bear no resemblance towards any other known COs in Orange Star, Blue Moon, Yellow Comet, or Green Earth.' In retrospect, they seem to be an entirely new group distantly linked to the Black Hole army."

"So?" Lash seemed to be getting into a worse mood – her little giggling had already vanished.

"Have you ever heard…of White Shadow?"

The reaction was instantaneous, and violent. Lash hissed and threw a little baby doll at my direction; it flew a good couple of inches above my head.

I didn't flinch. I had to press this matter.

"Your reaction seems to me that you're familiar with this group, Lash. Care to elaborate?"

Lash threw herself on her bed and covered up her head.

"Lash –"

The person in question completely screamed her head off into the pillow. This time, I did jump; that reaction was surprising.

After a moment, she retrieved her head out from the covers. "Of all the days to ruin my good mood, you had to pick this day…"

"Would it have made any difference if I came earlier or later?" I suggested.

"No, I suppose not," Lash heatedly concluded. She gave a snarl and sat down on her violated pillow. "Seeing how you can be so _stubborn_ on matters you're ordered to do, I guess I've no choice but to tell you everything I know."

"That would be helpful."

"But right after that, you're getting out of my room."

"That's cool."

Lash took a deep breath. "White Shadow was a division of Black Hole. It was the research division. I used to be the head of it."

I waited.

"Eventually though, I was placed with the main Black Hole COs; they told me that my battle prowess would be far more useful there than my successor's would be."

I smirked. "Oh, I get it. That's why it ticked you off earlier. It was really because your replacement was smar –"

Before I could get the word out, Lash snarled again. I let her continue.

"That stupid Dr. Tea!" she screeched. "How I'd love to wring her neck!"

"Uh…Dr. T?"

"No, Tea as in T-E-A. It was a little insult I made."

"…I see."

A little bit more calmly, she continued, "While I specialized in making weapons of mass destruction, she took on more of a physicist role and specialized in dimensional analysis."

"Aha! The transporter!"

"So that was what brought the new COs here?"

Very quickly I realized I let slip something important. Before I could cover it up, though, she mused to herself: "That definitely does explain it. It now makes sense why the big boss let _him_ wander around…if they even _thought_ he was the same person I knew…and that also explains why _he_ was chosen…"

"Wait, what?"

Very suddenly Lash regained her good mood. She giggled, and lay back on her bed. "Sorry! Only going to tell you one more thing. The 'new CO' that your little piece of paper talks about is probably Black Hole's secret CO, the one appointed to protect the research division. He was pretty hot, and strong. You'll probably recognize him."

"…Hey, what about the name?"

"None for you!"

"But –"

"GET OUT OF MY ROOM!"


	5. Defence

**Disclaimer: Advance Wars belongs to Intelligent Systems and Black Cat belongs to Kentaro Yabuki. I own absolutely nothing in relation to either works, except for the idea to mesh them together.**

* * *

Chapter Four – Defence

"COVER!"

I grabbed Eve's arm. A little too forcefully, maybe.

I hurled myself and Eve into a little pond in the forest area we were in. It wasn't even deep enough to cover half my body lying down, but it did the trick – the machine gun fire didn't hit us. It missed both of us and by the time my head popped up, the firing had died down and the enemy was surveying their damage.

Two others, though, wasn't so lucky. One was hit through both legs, and the other on the shoulder.

"Fire back!" I yelled, as soon as I could speak again.

Rachel wasted a moment saying, "_I'm_ in command right now!" Then: "Fire back!"

Our people were blind. Even though it was technically day, there was a really thick fog and the forest that we were in was dense and most of the bullets probably hit the tree trunks rather than actual bodies.

But whatever. We opened fire, at the very least making whoever was oppressing us be a little more cautious. And cautious means slow. Which in turn means it's time to –

"I miss yesterday," Eve said between the intervals of spitting out pond water. A drastic contradiction from what she said yesterday in the office, when she wished out loud she could get into the field already. I didn't mention that bit.

"I do too," I said, just when Rachel called: "Move out west!"

Eve's next sentence was, "What the heck is Train doing?"

"Well, if we knew that, maybe we won't quite be in this situation."

Now, I can hear cannon fire that was most likely from our side; good, the backup had arrived early.

Rachel still wasn't happy. "What the heck is Train doing?" She repeated after Eve over the buzz of the radio. "He's way off schedule!"

"Well, his character suggests he, uh, tends to go solo."

"Don't kid around, Jake! My life's hard enough already. And keep moving! The tanks will take care of those units soon! And relay commands to Train, if you can contact him – he'd better get his behind up and moving!"

"Rachel, there was a better way to say things like that, but I suppose you don't really care at this point."

Ignoring my comment, she again yelled: "Move out, troops!"

* * *

Nine long hours later, we were ready to hit the sack.

Well, we were ready, but it wasn't happening anytime soon, because Rachel had ordered one final push.

"See this map, Eve?" I said between yawns. "We were scouting this morning. Rachel's estimate was sorta right – there were only a couple of units in that area. Of course, we nearly got owned by the hidden infantry. She sent in two more tank squads to take care of the tank and the artillery, but that extra infantry is still roaming around somewhere in this area. We're gonna have to go after it before we can retire for the night."

Gulping down half a can of Coke, I continued: "Rachel's pretty sure the infantry would be around in this area." I circled a small space on the map. "She sent in a Recon to scout, and by the time we get there, the Recon should've spotted them and we can capture them or finish them off, and then we can go back to HQ and spend our time in the lovely office. Your call, really."

"We'll capture them."

"I like that answer."

* * *

The day after the next day.

"Crud, Rachel was wrong this time," I said, scratching my head and looking at the map. "I think we're surrounded by four squads of mechs. A pincer, huh."

"You _think_?" Eve replied, gritting her teeth. She was in a bad mood, but I guess I couldn't blame her, because she had to transform a part of her hand into a huge shield.

"Glad you're with us, Eve." After all, without the shield, most of our squad would've been at the very least injured.

"You're welcome."

"You still want to capture them?"

"Yes."

I grinned. Though it was late at night – or early in the morning, depending on how you look at it – Eve never ceased to amaze, and astound. "Am I asking too much, or do you think you can convert the ground into a source of lachrymator?"

* * *

Oh, man. Already two weeks since the conversation with Lash.

"This is where the current enemy HQ would be." A briefing. A rather _brief _briefing. Ha ha. "In this battle you have a fairly active role – an APC will transport you into the general location of the HQ and, of course, your mission is to capture said HQ as fast as possible. I will be in command from the primary command centre, and Rachel will be within six kilometres away if you ever need backup. Because this is a high-risk mission, you have a very flexible choice in the equipment you can select and bring…"

* * *

Four weeks.

"We've recovered over fifty percent of the total territory we've lost to White Shadow!" Nell announced over the radio. "Currently, Omega Land is leading the move by recovering over three-quarters of their land. Congratulations! Macro Land and Cosmo Land will follow their example and we will remove White Shadow in due course…"

* * *

Over a month.

"Our recovery is eighty percent done," Rachel briefed. "Looks like our estimates predict less than twenty more days and we're done taking back our territory. Now that we've located White Shadow's homeland, we're already working on invasion plans invade their bases – tell your men it will commence in two days after the end of the expulsion project…"

* * *

"Does this kind of life get to you?"

"Huh?" Eve's question caught me off-guard.

I took a look around – it was…

Oh, now I remember. Just after the briefing from Rachel. So, that means I was on my way to take my people on a final push against White Shadow.

Time sure flies.

"Okay, maybe that question was a little rhetorical because it looks like you've been, in your own words, zoning out lately."

"…Probably, yeah." And as if to add evidence, I gave a huge yawn.

"…No offence, but why? I thought you were supposed to be 'top-notch'?"

I laughed. "That I am. But if you read my profile carefully, you would've read that I'm a top-notch _tank commander_. Nothing said I couldn't zone out."

But then, before Eve could say anything, I smiled ruefully and said: "The reason why I'm zoning out is that war is really not something that the usual brain can handle. You probably noticed this – I did. When you see a dead body, you usually avert your eyes, just like me and Rachel, right?"

Eve just closed her mouth, her question now forgotten.

"Both are my way of coping with war. No sane person can truly stare at death and not let it affect them," I said heavily. "Neither Rachel nor I – nor, for that matter, any other Orange Star CO's, former or not – had the resolution to make peace with any death, whether it was friend or foe. It's not something to be ashamed of, Eve. It's not a weakness, it's not a sin."

Silence.

"Now that I think about it, how _did_ you cope? You're too attentive to really zone out like I do, and you can't block out _everything_ you see."

…

"Is…is your photographic memory…just a drawback, here?"

Still no comment. She didn't meet my gaze. But her eyes – when she first came here, they were eyes that thought they knew the world, they were eyes that didn't know how to be rattled. Now, they were eyes that were tired.

Maybe I was being a little too intrusive. I moved on.

"The soldiers have it even worse. They're the ones killing, they're the ones getting killed, and they're the ones who have to handle the dead bodies. Really, I'm surprised that only a small percentage has mental breakdowns. War is really not something to play around with. It's just constant. I read an accurate quote a while back – 'Military life is made up of long periods of inactivity punctuated by furious bursts of exhausting and terrifying work'. Of course, as COs, we get those 'furious bursts of work' a little more frequently. In fact, the only person I had ever met who was strong enough to at least not show how rattled he is – is Train. That first week, when we were making a push to the shore he was really amazing, very calm – and compassionate towards those who had died and those who are dying in the war."

"No, he's just too thickheaded to actually think about the consequences of what he's doing."

…Wow, that's harsh.

"But does that explain why I'm so unusually out of it?"

"I guess."

And then an idea came to my mind. A good idea, I thought. And the more I thought, the better the idea seemed. Because, although, it was slightly manipulative, at the same time, I thought this action would probably help get my brain back up and running again.

As well as getting a small gift for Train.

"Well, actually there are _two_ reasons," I said, casually putting a hand into my pocket.

"Hm? Then what's the other reason?"

"You are."

Eve stopped. I mean, _literally_ stopped walking. Her expression was a perfect example of what would occur if a rhinoceros came up to her and said, "Gimme ten bucks." I could almost hear her thought: "What?"

Bull's-eye. I did _not_ waste this opportunity. I whipped out my cell phone, honed into the camera function, and snapped a picture of her face

Or at least, I tried to. I did not count on Eve's insanely fast reaction that knocked my phone out of my hands.

And before I could complain that it was worth almost as much as my pistol, she instantly produced a hammer similar to the one she was about to use on Train.

Wow, she did not take that well.

"Hold it! Come on, I have a partly legitimate reason!"

From the annoyed expression on her face, she definitely did not think so. On the other hand, she did stop.

"Okay, look, basically what I meant was that you're a horrible student."

The hammer got bigger.

Uh-oh. Time to come clean.

"All right, all right. Look. Basically what I meant was you don't really ask questions. You pretty much now everything that a person has to do to be a Commanding Officer." I started pouting. Not too sure it was effective, but what the heck. "And _because_ you're that good, you completely neutralized _my_ role. Namely, I literally have nothing to do, because I'm supposed to 'look after' you for the duration of the war."

"Are you trying to imply that you being brain dead is _my_ fault?" Eve said, with an expression that completely contrasted with her sweet features.

"Well, truthfully, yes. Come on, haven't you read any of those scientific journals? The brain needs stimulation to be able to act. No stimulation, no action. Nothing to do, not doing anything."

"You're just repeating a sentence."

"Okay, fine, remember those feral child case studies? Wait, did you take a course on Anthropology, Psychology, and Sociology in the first place? No, nevermind. Anyways, the thing is, those feral children who were only given their bare necessities and nothing to use their brains for was what directly led them to get their brain all wacked up. They didn't know how to speak, they didn't know how to interact, they didn't know anything about human culture. So, pretty much, it was a hard road for the social workers assigned to them to try to get them to act all human again."

"…I'm still sure that you're just rationalizing after you tried to trick me into making a face that you could take on your camera and send to Train."

That was probably forty percent true. Okay, maybe forty-nine percent.

"Oh, come on, it was pretty harmless. Just another way to get my creative thinking back up and running again."

"If you're so concerned about that, why don't you just plan out the next phase of the campaign by yourself?"

She stomped off, turning her hair back to normal.

So much for creative thinking.

* * *

Eve was already in my office when I arrived; the men inside were already standing at attention, so I said: "Stand at ease."

I need to amp up my vocabulary.

Anyways, I set down the maps that were on my arms and unrolled one. Then I took out a pencil and circled a spot.

"This is where we are now."

One of the foot soldiers rolled his eyes.

I placed an X on another spot and said, "This is where the enemy HQ probably is. What you are to do right now is to start capturing the bases, so that we can create more manufacturing plants and, in return, create more weaponry."

CO 101: Always give the soldiers clear instructions so that they can't blame you in a court of law, if anything went wrong. Sad, but true.

Not that this applied to all soldiers, of course. Major Mustang, Lieutenant Hawkeye, now they were people I could ease up on – and people who I could trust my back with.

Right, another reality check.

"That would be step one in the current plan of war that I devised. This is to be finished in three days. Following from that, we expect that all of the bases will be up and running, and further instructions will be given at that point. Any questions?"

The same soldier who rolled his eyes was cheeky enough to ask: "How come we're supposed to take fifteen full days when all the other missions took less than seven days each?"

"First of all, we're cut down a little on the size of our army." I didn't mention that was because Train took the other half and went AWOL. "Secondly, this is about one-tenth of the entire area taken that we're trying to take back at once."

I also didn't mention the fact I was being a little more cautious than usual because our best planner that we had right now was sulking.

"Any other questions?" There was none.

I took a deep breath and shouted, "DIIIIIIIIIIISMISSED!"

Upon the startled reactions of my men, I added: "I always wanted to try that. You know, stimulating the mind."

From the side of the room, I thought I heard a quiet snort.

* * *

Day six.

BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP…

Gah, the alarm.

"Darn it, just gimme another minute…"

"Not happening. It's already five-thirty in the morning."

Oh. Darn.

Lifting my head from my pillow – uh, desk – I said sleepily: "I thought you were too busy sulking?"

"I decided to get back in action to compensate for your lacking skills."

I winced. You knew you weren't doing a good job when your own student chastises you. Maybe a month ago I probably would have enough of experience authority to outweigh whatever comments she had, but now she was a full CO, an equal.

Still… "Watch what you say, Eve, you'll never know if it'll come back to haunt you. You're still a greenhorn compared to Train, anyways."

I yawned, and drank some water -

Hey, wait a minute. Where was my Coke?

I sighed, put the bottle of water in the recycling bin, and stretched.

"Today's day six, right? Any early status reports?"

"Why are you asking me? Ask the general."

Still in a bad mood, after my little trick. Although, now that I actually look back on it, maybe it _was_ a little mean.

"Oh, fine," I said, with mock regret. "I suppose I'll have to walk _aaaaaaaaall _the way down to the communications room and see for myself."

I had only halfway gotten out of my seat when Eve said: "Don't you want to know why I came in here this early?"

"And without invitation, I might add," I said, grinning and getting out of the office.

I had actually almost closed the door. _Almost_, if not for Eve saying the thing that I've been waiting for all this time.

"We contacted Train."

* * *

"The heck, Train. What the _heck_! You were MIA for almost a _month_ and _now_ you come back and talk?"

The voice on the radio was still fairly weak and punctuated with loud static bursts, but I could read him well enough. "Uh…I suppose I have a lot of explaining to do."

"You can start now."

"Well, basically, I _think _I wasn't paying attention. When we finally reached the east shore, I thought the next stage of our plan was to invade White Shadow's baselands – if that's a word – and that's what I did, with the bombers, battleships, and stealth…and that also explains why you were so behind."

"You should've realized it wasn't _us_ behind, it was _you_ ahead." I sighed again, and said: "Exactly how far are you in the invasion?"

"Well, when I left, I was actually almost to the enemy HQ, and was about to engage the mastermind CO directly."

"_WHAT_? THEN WHY DID YOU LEAVE?"

A couple of personnel scooted away from where I was taking Train's call.

"Uh, I sorta thought I could just postpone it 'till I came back, and hope that General Armstrong could hold until then…and besides, from what Eve said, both Rachel and you were pretty mad."

I sighed, again. "Well, at least it partially explains why this campaign was more easier than when we were up against Black Hole."

"Yup! Keeping the CO and their resources against me, you probably had no possibility of losing to what they have on Omega Land," Train said cheerfully, probably thinking that that was a plus for his actions.

Train's voice was getting louder. That was probably good – means he's getting closer. "Okay, Train," I said, massaging my temples. "This is what I want you to do. We're on our final battle against White Shadow on Omega Land, so come back and help us capture or rout the enemy forces. Once that's done, we'll immediately proceed to the invasion of White Shadow's land." Then: "You know, we can't keep on calling it 'White Shadow's land'. It's just too awkward. Is there a name for the island they're at?"

"Well, you could call it the land of Broken Mirror."

"What?"

"Apparently, that's the CO's codename. Broken Mirror."

"…Still awkward, but better than nothing, I guess." Then: "Hold on, where'd you get _that_ info?"

"Oh, I was in the middle of interrogating a coupla White Shadow foot soldiers and that's what they told me. Of course, that's also when General Alphonse told me Eve wanted to talk so I left–"

"IF YOU WERE IN THE MIDDLE OF RECEIVING IMPORTANT INFORMATION THEN WHY'D YOU LEAVE?"

"Uh…'cause Eve told me to?"

I sighed and just rubbed my temples, wondering how to break this gently to Rachel.

But before I could continue the conversation–

"Commander Jake! Incoming missile silos! Two…no, three of them!"

"What the – uh, everybody, _take cover_!"

"Wait, what?" Train asked into my ear.

"We seem to be getting attacked, Train." I said as calmly as I could. "This is where you would've come in handy _IF_ you were here."

"Uh…sorry? But don't worry, I'm pretty close now."

"Enough to use those?" I asked skeptically.

Just over the phone, I heard a gun getting loaded. "Probably," said Train, and I could almost imagine that cocky grin of his that he had whenever he used his gun, Hades.

BAAANG!

KA-BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

…And then silence. Holy cow, did he destroy three missiles in one shot?

"C-Commander? The missile silos…seem to have disappeared."

"Not disappeared," I corrected, crawling out from under the desk. "Destroyed." And then: _No, he _did_ fire three shots – they were just fired so quickly that the sounds overlapped and sounded like one shot_.

With new respect, I took up the phone again, and said: "Come in and attack from the beach side, Train. Since you're so far in your invasion, we'll proceed immediately after you come here help clean up this mess."

* * *

Checkpoint.

Interrupting my thoughts, Eve said: "I still think the better terminology is _rendezvous_, Jake. Or did France never exist in this world?"

"Sorry, Eve, but I'm not a world expert. Nor, for that matter, an expert on alternate dimensions. I only told you what I read up on Myclopedia." And then, to a communications personnel: "Any sign of either?"

"No signal from Commander Train detected. We seem to be intercepting radio signals from White Shadow, however."

"Prepare for battle."

Eve said: "Are you sure it's such a good idea to meet Train here, where we're surrounded by so much enemy forces?"

"Judging from his immediate adaptation to warfare, he seems to have a lot more field experience than even Rachel. I could also say here that his CO POWER is even better than yours, Eve." Then I grinned. "No offence, but I know for a fact he would've trashed you if he actually activated that POWER of his."

"Talk about sexism and age-bias."

"I'm serious here, Eve. But it is true that we could be screwed over if he doesn't keep his appointment."

With that positive remark, I turned my attention to General Edward. "Set up a defensive perimeter around this area. Remember to take off the first safety on your machine guns. Go with the textbook arrangement – tanks forming the outmost ring, artilleries on the inside. Save that mid tank until things get really nasty." After a pause, I added: "Keep the tanks more concentrated on the north, south, and west. We're expecting Train from the east, so he should be able to clean up anything from that direction. Save up enough to purchase a neotank, though, just in case."

"Can we really capture the HQ with a force this small?" A soldier asked. A rookie, obviously. I promptly punched him on the shoulder. The left one, of course. Don't want to mess up his marksmanship. Then again, he might be left-handed.

"Don't think like that. We've two platoons, don't we? It's better than a squad."

"Yes, Jake, like it'll make a difference against a company," Eve chimed in.

I scowled, but then I laughed. "Way to keep the morale up, Eve." She was just mad because she was the one tagged up with Train. When he took command and left overseas, he took an army that was also hers, leaving Eve unable to command. Having her men so close yet too far must be really frustrating.

I cleared my throat, and continued: "Anyways, I expect all of you to hold for at least half a day. Considering Train's approximate proximity, it should be enough."

* * *

Contrary to Eve's expectations, Train arrived early.

Well, actually I guess it would depend on the definition of 'arrived'. He had reached the same latitude and longitude geography-wise, but it was some time before he actually touched the ground, thanks to jumping out of a B copter some several hundred metres high.

"Show off," I sighed, when he was finally in camp.

"What? I can't make a good impression?" The very embodiment of cockiness.

"At the very least, take the schedule into consideration. Not to mention my wait time."

Train just grinned. "Ah, but the beauty of my marksmanship is the way that I can fire even _in the air_. I even had a walkie-talkie on me, in case you wanted me to create an opening for you."

"That would be nice if I had the _other_ walkie-talkie," I commented dryly.

Train continued, unabashed: "I can even activate my POWER in the air, you know."

I reached into my backpack. "Well, I got _that_ message when you said you could fire in the air. And by the way, Train."

"Hm?"

"Next time, don't misuse the equipment just to get a free parachute jump. Nor, for that matter, try to act like you can shoot someone with an empty barrel."

"What made you think I had an empty barrel?"

"'Cause you forgot _these_ here," I said, tossing him the stuff he needed for his Program. The stuff he had wanted at Hachi's.

"Oh…my ammo."

"Well, duh. As much as you're a good shot, I doubt even _you_ could activate your POWER without these special shots." Heck yeah, I finally pulled one over on Train.

"That…didn't have to mean my barrel was empty."

"Alright, maybe not, but at the very least you wouldn't activating your POWER in mid-air, Train," I said a bit smugly, "which is what I'm pretty sure you just tried to boast about."

Train sighed this time, "Alright, I get the message."

"That's good to hear." And then suddenly I was all business. "What you need to do now, Train, since you couldn't earlier –"

Okay, _almost_ all business.

"You need to make a hole. An opening. Whatever. You can do that, right?"

_Click_. Train had loaded his shots took aim somewhere far away, not even bothering to move from where he was standing. A few soldiers scuttled out of the way, not having any confidence – yet – at the newest CO's shooting skills. "Sorry, Jake, but I'm taking over the command of your army too. It's just easier if I just do this myself."

"I haven't even explained to you the situation yet."

"Did you need to?"

"That _was_ a rhetorical question," I conceded. "I noticed that you can instantly size up an opportunity whenever you see it, and you had a good look on the B copter, if not on the parachute down."

"Not to mention I have enough POWER funding to use my regular Program seven times over," Train finished. Then, he just grinned again, got a decent grip on the sand, and spoke almost as if I wasn't supposed to hear:

"You should've thought twice before crossing the Black Cat's path…"

I could almost hear the music track changing, from Andy's Campaign Simulator. And I could almost see the blazing white words that would've been printed on the screen:

_CO POWER activated. Code Name: Jinx Shot._

In all, Train fired twelve bullets. Twelve gifts for the unlucky soldiers. Twelve beats that echoed across the skies.

Twelve little rocks that changed the tide of the war.

* * *

"Did you see that?"

"Unlike you, Train, I don't have superhuman eyesight."

Train beamed, and I instantly regretted giving him more incentive to go around with a swelled head. Man, what must _Eve_ go through?

"Anyways, I sent two to the nearest tank – we can clean that up right now. Six more went to the next tank, and the remaining four into the artillery. That opens up a nice new path straight into the HQ, where there's only one more tank and two more mechs, and the best part of all–" Train's voice took on a humoured tone – "they can't catch us because their factories are too far away!"

"Train! Don't jinx it!" But I knew full well that Train was right. He always seemed to be. He always looked like he was playing around, but at the same time he always had his guard up.

"Haha! Don't _jinx_ it! That's pretty funny!"

I just groaned. "Train, I was _just_ thinking respectable thoughts about you. Please be serious here. Did you –"

"Create fatalities? Of course not, Eve would be way too mad at me. No, most of the time I just took care to hit the arms. That's usually enough to prevent them from using a machine gun for a while. For the tanks, I made sure I lodged the bullets into the machine's joints, usually just stopping the thing that lets the barrel turn. And speaking of Eve, there she is."

I turned to see that Train was right. She was running our way, which was a little unusual because she was supposed to be resting right now.

But what caught my gaze now were her eyes. They were eyes that thought they knew the world, they were eyes that didn't know how to be rattled, and they were eyes that were tired. But now, they were bright eyes. They were eyes that were glad to see another day.

Did she look like that _after_ I tried to trick her?

Or was it…because _Train_ was here?

"Eve!" Train yelled, breaking my thoughts. He was waving at Eve, as if we weren't already noticed. "Didja see that? I just made your life a lot eas –"

This was about as far as he got before Eve punched him in the face with her hair (huh?) and knocked him backwards several metres, landing with a _sploosh_ in the ocean waters.

Right now, they were really, _really_ annoyed eyes.

…Probably not Train, then.

* * *

_****__**Thanks to Vandenbz for the first review.**_


	6. Offence

**Disclaimer: Advance Wars belongs to Intelligent Systems and Black Cat belongs to Kentaro Yabuki. I own absolutely nothing in relation to either works, except for the idea to mesh them together.**

* * *

Chapter Five – Offence

"Want a Coke, Jake?"

In the middle of my sentry duty, I looked round to see Eve suddenly appearing right beside me, holding – of all things – hot cola.

Wow. Total ninja.

"Uh…How long were you there?" I took the cup, gulped it down, and immediately wish I hadn't.

"No more than ten seconds. So how do you like it?"

I swear, that girl was oblivious on purpose.

"Excellent," I replied, torturing myself by chugging it all down and keeping my face as straight as possible, while at the same time trying not to vomit. Did _not_ think a microwave could do this. I'll have to stick with Pepsi for the next few days. "How are _you_ doing, Eve? Don't you ever need to sleep?"

"I thought I already explained that without a lot of physical stress, my body doesn't need to recuperate very often," Eve stated matter-of-factly.

"I guess I should've remembered that." I raised my voice, and near-shouted to Breda and Brosh: "Hey Privates! How're you doing? Want some hot cola too?"

The chuckling came to an abrupt stop. Then Brosh stammered, "N-no thank you!"

"So much for being professionals," I remarked, just before Breda remembered to add: "Sir!" "Well, you better get some sleep, Eve. You have a big day tomorrow."

"And you decided to deprive yourself of energy right before the invasion? Is that smart?"

"Watch the mouth, Eve." I'm enjoying this bantering now. It was comfortable. "If you really have to know, since everyone already knew the plan, I thought I would take the liberty of giving them the time to rest up so that they could perform well tomorrow. After all, they don't need me – they already know the plan."

"Jake, you're just repeating yourself again."

"Okay, fine, what I mean is –"

"You just don't want to wake up early in the morning, and lead an assault for the HQ. So, you intentionally placed yourself in a sentry duty well into the morning, in hopes that you being too tired would be a good enough excuse for you to sleep and leave me the command of the army."

"…Are you sure you're not psychic?"

"Yes, I'm sure, Jake. You're just that easy to read."

All the same, she must've read at least one book on psychology. Then again, 'easy to read' probably just meant I was, psychologically speaking, an open book.

"No, really, you're a psychic, Eve. I can just tell with chi – girls." Still a child, still a child, keep that in my head.

"You wouldn't know. You're not me."

"Yet I can still prove to you that you're the one who can read someone else's mind, even over long distances."

The girl frowned, not following.

"What's Rachel thinking right now?"

Eve groaned. "Talk about an easy one."

"See? You can read other people's minds."

My troubles to prove her psychic abilities were met with a scowl. A cute scowl, but the meaning was the same. "You know as well as I that right now, Rachel's probably testing her toy on Train for his inattention."

She got that bit right. Just before we left Omega Land, Rachel had shown both Eve and I a new shipment of paintball guns, and one that she had personally taken a liking to, as well as the stock of several hundred shells. I could just imagine in my head Rachel, her gadget, a wide open field, and Train with bulls-eyes taped all over his body. Train might be the better shot, but Rachel was good enough to sting him multiple times on the behind.

"Jake, no. That doesn't count."

"Yes it does."

"No it doesn't."

"Yes it does."

"No."

"Yes."

"No."

"Yes."

"…I'm not going to get sucked into a childish argument over who's right or wrong."

"Sweet, I win!"

That comment apparently earned me another glare. "No, you do not. Just because I don't want to argue right now doesn't mean this is an argument that you dominated."

"Then gimme a _good _reason why that would not count as an explanation for your psychic abilities."

Eve struggled to come up with a good comeback. Nothing.

Heck yeah. First Train, now Eve: I was on a roll!

"You never did answer my question two weeks ago," Eve abruptly said, changing the topic.

And just like that, my good mood went down the drain. Because I knew what she was talking about.

"Do I ever get tired of this kind of life? That question?"

From Eve's expression, I guessed so. No, more than that. I knew it.

I wondered. I was first recruited and trained at sixteen. That was the last time I saw my homies. Now that I think about it, after the last war, there really was nothing for them but jobs. The normal ones. The ones that didn't deal in prisoners, disciplines, and killings. The ones that my old man wanted me to go into.

The ones that weren't emotionally draining.

"The field is a very different place from the classroom," I said slowly.

On good field days, I get to ride around on top of a tank and feel the wind across my face, the music blasting into my ears and _maybe_ a book or two from an author I enjoy reading. It's a pretty cool and calm experience, makes me think all's well in the world.

"Then the bad days come along."

On the bad days, I'll have to engage in battle directly with the enemy forces. There's machine guns setting ablaze and grenades wreaking havoc and cannon fire going off and God knows what's going on around me. There's so many things going on at once and so many things that's going to happen if I don't get everything right that I have to make my way through those kinds of battlefields practically blinded or deaf or both.

"On these days, I hate the fact that I'm a Commanding Officer. Maybe I can lead more efficiently to a battle victory than other people. But so what. Priority went to _my_ life. People died in _my_ place."

And I could never always prevent it.

"But I've always kept slugging on ahead, determined to make amends. Every person wounded, my army routs two. Every person dead, my army capture two."

Claiming debt.

Funny, really. I'd probably be a good debt collector. Well, maybe.

But the point is:

"I'll always do my job, and I'll do it _my_ way."

I smiled and just shook my head. "Yeah, it's tiring. I don't like it. But really, no one does. This is a job only for those willing. And I'm willing. Why? So no one else will have to be."

Then I caught Eve's look and just laughed. "What? Didn't think I had the brains in me to come up with such a sophisticated answer?"

She chose not to answer that question. Instead: "I didn't think you were to type to monologue."

I laughed again. "Well, sorry for taking up your time then. Now you really should rest, you're going to be up in about five hours."

And as Eve started to leave, I called to Eve:

"Nice job so far."

* * *

Talk about a jinx.

The battle was going a lot worse than I thought.

Yeah, the Orange Star Army surprised them real bad. Especially with the other superpowers so behind in their expulsion projects, and the enemy HQ so heavily guarded in Train's absence, not one person had thought that we'd be back anytime soon.

But it looked like at least one person thought to be careful.

We were the ones getting freaked out when hidden forces started attacking us from our sides.

Hidden. But not hiding.

And they weren't just the stealth aircrafts.

It was the tanks, the rockets, the midtanks, the anti-airs, even the sole megatank that they got from who knows where. They were allinvisible. Except for the ones that weren't supposed to be.

The ones left out to dry. The ones left to lure any potential attackers further than they should have.

Hook, line, and sinker.

I was the one who had noticed first. It was just after I took over Eve's command during the next night.

The giveaway? Cannon fire. Near the temp HQ. And it wasn't from us.

"The heck? I thought you said all the enemy tanks are twenty klicks away."

Eve just shrugged. Even she had no idea back then.

We were educated five seconds later when a daring and invisible APC tried to run us over.

I saw the tracks appearing out of nowhere and heading towards us. Being disciplined as I was, in an instant I understood.

But that first sighting was luck. Completely and utterly.

"Eve! Invis!"

Unfortunately, my teachings on quick communication backfired. She looked up into the skies, searching for any signs of stealth aircrafts, oblivious to the danger on the ground.

Ultimately I realized it was up to me. So I took the fastest way out, tackling Eve to the ground.

Not gentlemanly. But definitely necessary.

The APC rolled past us, and crashed into a tent. Things cracked. One was obviously the stealth technology, because the APC was visible now. But I also heard bones snapping. And it wasn't from inside the enemy APC.

Eve got mad. When she gets mad, she gets creative. Before anyone else could react, she ran up to the APC, ran up to the top of it, and somehow welded both hatches shut. She then proceeded to jump down, grip the wheels, and turn (or maybe shred?) it all to dust.

By the time anyone else had run over (no offence to anyone injured), Eve had dragged out of the wrecked tent five people; once who seemed completely unharmed, but three more that looked like they concussions and/or bleeding. The last guy was much worse – on top of a big, visible bruise on his cheekbones and a long gash along his leg, soaking his uniform in blood, he had an open, broken arm.

I tried not to look at the muscles, blood, and sharpened bone of his when I grabbed him gently. "Soldier! Talk to me, now. That's an order!"

"C-Commander…?" The injured man seemed barely conscious. Crud, probably head concussions too.

"Stay with me here, solder. Again, that's an order." 'Soldier'? Did I already write him off as a goner? I tried again. "Private, we have a clean record on fatalities here and we're not about to let you go." That _might_ have sounded good if it wasn't for the desperate calls of "Medic!" in the background.

"I…Commander…I see…angel…ow –"

That last bit – okay, probably the angel bit too – was because Eve touched his busted arm lightly, and something began to glow. And a few seconds later, she reached out and _twisted_ his arm back gently. At first I thought he would faint from the pain, but then I realized she might have numbed his senses first.

And just like that, his arm was as good as new. Not even a scar was left. The private, wide-eyed, clenched and then unclenched his first experimentally, then faced Eve and saluted. "M-my thanks, Commander," he stammered.

"No need for formalities," I snapped, interrupting Eve's "You're welcome". "We're at war here, people, and the situation is bad. _Move_!"

And just like that, the still scene that captivated everyone was shattered. Most checked on their weapons and ran off to their stations, having been drilled in a course to take if we were ever attacked. One Lieutenant was smart enough to check the rest of the wrecked tent.

"No other personnel found in the tent, Commanders!" he shouted.

I shouted back. "I think the question here is whether there's anyone in there rather than if you found any!"

"Unless our personnel have power to turn into broken equipment, there's no one else in here!" After a moment, "Commander!"

"Very well!" I called back. I turned to Eve. "Cheeky," I commented dryly, "but it helps keep the morale up."

That was true. Look up CO 102.

"Lieutenant, secure the enemy APC! Let's go, Eve," I said, leading the way to my (temporary) office.

It was only under the cover of the fairly thick tent that I visibly grinned at her and said, "Nice job!"

And in response, she promptly fell over, having to force me to catch her. "Uh, Eve?"

"Sorry," she replied groggily. "That was more than I usually do. I'll be fine after a while, though, I'm more efficient than before."

I nodded, while wondering whether by using the word "efficient" she just objectified herself or I was just being too oversensitive. I decided after a moment that I didn't know Eve enough yet to come to a conclusion for that, so I refrained from giving her a good substitute word this time.

Instead, I plopped her into the only other chair in the room, and told her: "We need a change in plans."

"You think?"

I grabbed a receiver and dialled the home HQ number, extending to Rachel directly. When she picked up, her voice was abnormally cheerful as she chirped, "One moment!"

I heard something discharge, and in the next moment, I heard someone familiar scream, "MY HAIR!" in the distance.

"Cute, Rachel," I said sarcastically. "But the humane society might be wondering why the commander-in-chief of Omega Land is treating a kitty as target practice."

"Don't worry, in a court of law I can probably get him ten years for insubordination."

"Probably."

That was when Eve said, "Jake, get on with it!"

I rolled my eyes at her, but when I turned back to the phone my good mood from hearing Rachel's voice vanished. "Rachel, we need two things. One, a change in plans. And two, major reinforcements. We're hitting a really big obstacle."

Rachel paused before asking: "How bad?"

"Really bad. And it's definitely going to get really, really ugly sometime soon." I explained to her about the invisible units. "The only reason we – well, probably just me, Eve's too much of a Superman –"

"Hey!" Both girls said.

"Super_woman_, then. But anyways, the only reason I'm still alive, and our men are still alive, is simple luck. Both you and Train need to help, too. We'll need both of you really badly."

"Gotcha. He'll be there in a few days."

And then she hung up on me. So of course I hung up too.

"Jake?" Eve asked but I was already moving back to the exit. I poked my head out and yelled. "General Alphonse! How much do I have in my POWER fund?"

"You've saved up all six stars, sir, and it's been like that for a while. I checked last week."

"Alright, then, this is what we're gonna do. Have _every _unit up there ready to retreat. They're to leave the area tomorrow, head back down south, regroup and amass before heading back up again and kicking White Shadow in the behind. Have my POWER ready to activate tomorrow – they'll need the movement boost."

The General arched his eyebrows in surprise, but he started organizing my orders.

Eve, on the other hand, did not agree. "Jake! The whole point of my tactics today was to prepare our units to sweep the opposition! You can't back out on the plan now!"

Oh, dear. Right now I was remembering her solution to the enemy APC.

Nevertheless, I responded. "I can and I will, Eve. We've already lost the element of surprise, and the enemy isn't even backing off to regroup right now – they might already have our people surrounded. A forward advance is suicidal, they'll get attacked from at least three sides. We don't even know how many units they have. Unless you can see invisible units, we've no reliable intel, and we sure as heck are not going to risk anything or anyone."

"What do you mean, not risking anyone? If they leave now, they leave the rockets behind!"

Oh. Crud.

"You…you placed the rockets in the mountains?"

"Obviously, we were going to advance in the following days. Where else would the rockets be safer than in the mountains? And I can't get them out until the technology recharges!"

But I already wasn't listening. I sprinted towards the com tent, before realizing it was trashed. I ran towards General Alphonse again.

"General! Your radio, _now_! Set it for the rocket or rocket_s _in the mountains, and give!"

By the time I had recovered my breath, Alphonse had given the radio set to me, and I snapped into it. "Status! Now!"

"Wha – Commander Jake? What are you –"

That was as far as they got before, inevitably, the sound of something exploding came over the set.

Eve, by this time, had catched up to me, and could only stare at me and the General in horror. The General had taken that as a cue of the situation and started yelling for the soldiers to move it, double-time. And I could only stare at the set, not even thinking anything except for one thought:

_No…Eve's first war was going so well…why did people have to start dying _now_…?_

The radio set, for its part, could not convey the utter destruction it was processing. After the initial explosion, the sound waves emitted from it was only static and the occasional high-pitched squeak coming in from who knows where, before settling back into a regular crackling noise that I recognized as flames. Did it come from the tank? Or did it come from…

"C-commander…?"

That one word set my mind working again. But I realized how ironic it was that the other person who said that same phrase today could live while the other will die.

"Soldier! Status! _Now_!"

Coughing. Hacking and coughing was all that filled the radio for about five seconds. When that was done, the same weak voice came over the set. "Not good…we were wiped out with those two hits…" The soldier's voice was getting weaker. "I think I see mechs…I'm surprised I'm still alive…Everyone else is already burning…"

No. No. NO.

Eve voiced my thoughts I was struggling to make. "Keep yourself alive. We'll be there for you as soon as possible."

"Commander…Eve…?" A rhetorical question. Eve was too respected to be unrecognized. "Listen here, Commander…you're good…but…war still shouldn't…be a place for children…"

"If I can help, I _will_ help," Eve snapped. "I don't care what you think about my age –"

"My point…" The soldier interrupted his commander, definitely against protocol. What was he doing? "My point…is…you should…deal with…the better…side of life." He took a bigger breath here. "Your heart…doesn't have to…see the ugly side…of humans. You…have such…a better future…better…than mine."

He was dying. There was no doubt about it. I tried for humour. "Ordering your Commanders around? You're pushing things far too much."

Eve glared, but the soldier chuckled. "Probably…but I think…" Silence for a moment. Then: "Turn…it off…"

"What?" Eve was startled, but for me the penny dropped the instant he finished. I tried to switch it off.

Not soon enough.

_Bam_!

I closed my eyes, faced the sky, and let out profanities. For a moment, I didn't care Eve was there. Almost _because_ of her, this lone man's death was unbearable.

When I finished, I looked down and Eve was still there. Her face was pale. Much, much more pale than she should be.

"We need to get out of here." I said. I might have spoken harshly. At that moment, I didn't care. "We can't do anything here. Those invisible units are too much of a threat."

"But…the rockets." Eve said weakly. "There are still five more rocket squads scattered around the mountain range. We can't abandon them."

"We have to." There was no emotion in my voice. "Five units to twenty here, Eve. Think. What would be the better choice, considering that we might be toast already?"

Eve couldn't answer. She honestly couldn't. She never had to face this before.

So she just turned and walked away, leaving me the entire command of this fiasco.

And I just watched her go. I only started moving about thirty minutes later when I realized I had to get my reports done. So, I put the temp HQ under General Alphonse's charge and retired.

And there, in my tent, I pulled out last month's status report and stared at it.

_Insurgents Captured_: 57.

_Insurgents Confirmed Killed_: 12.

_Allied Casualties_: 42

_Allies Missing In Action_: 6.

_Allies Killed In Action_: 0.

A good another thirty minutes were spent just looking at that simple summary. With Eve and Train on our side, I had thought this would go smoothly, predictably.

But no. I had forgotten. War was unpredictable.

CO 103.

And with a heavy heart, I listed the known numbers of the week.

_Insurgents Captured_: 14.

_Insurgents Confirmed Killed_: 2.

_Allied Casualties_: 12

_Allies Missing In Action_: 2.

_Allies Killed In Action_: 10.


	7. Assault

**Disclaimer: Advance Wars belongs to Intelligent Systems and Black Cat belongs to Kentaro Yabuki. I own absolutely nothing in relation to either works, except for the idea to mesh them together.**

* * *

Chapter Six – Assault

0430 hours. Day thirteen.

I had protested profusely against intentionally placing an important invasion on such an unlucky day. Needless to say, Rachel was not impressed, and asked me politely to haul my butt off of her line.

But then she told me the first objective had to be reached at 1330 hours. Another thirteen, regardless of the way you look at the clock.

I had again protested profusely at Rachel's decision, and this time she not-so-politely asked me to haul my [butt] off of her line.

It was just five days since the Operation Rush Recklessly fiasco. (Technically it was supposed to be called Operation Orange Star, but because it wasn't a success the higher-ups renamed it Operation Rush Recklessly. Not that anyone could possibly blame Eve, of course – the top brass even said so in a press conference.) During that time, we had waited for Rachel and Train's arrival, while at the same time charging up our POWERs and waiting for an opportunity to break through the enemy lines and catch them off-guard. Or at least, we would've if we could've seen our enemies better.

Speaking of which, Eve got much more proficient with the unexpected situation. She can now readily find exactly where a specific enemy unit was, mostly from the size of these "shimmers" she claim she sees (no one else could) as well as the size of smoke from a possible camp.

Actually, we're pretty ready for another assault towards White Shadow. We're all go for the much-dreaded Tag POWER (dreaded by both the enemy and our own soldiers – the enemies because it's so freaking devastating, the allies because it's so freaking tiring working double shifts), and we're pretty sure we've got all the opposing units accounted for. Eve's a fierce kid, and she's ready to kill – well, probably not, but she's ready to fight back for the sixty-two lost lives in the last couple of days.

There were just three uncertainties.

One, we didn't know anything about the enemy's POWER/Super POWER. Believe it or not, the underground pays a lot for those scrap pieces of titanium/aluminum alloys, and I suppose the term "Super POWER" sounds just as good to a criminal as it does for an army guy.

Second, Train and Rachel still weren't here yet. They had run into some engine trouble, and Train was intent on running the rest of the way to the HQ, at which Rachel completely put her foot down and told the kitty to sit. Apparently, he was pretty bad at directions, not that I've seen that case myself.

But the last and the biggest uncertainty was Eve.

She was nowhere to be found.

* * *

"WHERE THE HECK IS SHE?" I roared. Seriously, my nerves were really frayed. She was not at the campfire, she was not at the training section, she was not in anybody's (temporary) office, she wasn't testing any of the tanks, and heck, she wasn't even anywhere in a two kilometre radius of our makeshift HQ. There was absolutely _no other_ place she could be.

"Double-time it, men! I want that girl found! And double-check _everywhere_! The dining area, the armoury, the tanks, and spread the radius to _five_ kilometres round the HQ! Now _move it_!"

I stomped over to the area where most of the offices were located. First I checked my own tent – not there. I pretty much ripped open a Lieutenant's tent, scaring her so much she tumbled back and brought the rest of the tent down. Cursing, and freeing myself from the wreckage, I got back on my feet, not even helping the Lieutenant up, and went ahead and ran over to the General's tent.

I kicked open the flap and marched straight in. "General! _Where the heck is Eve_?"

"Commander, please, you don't need to shout so loudly." Maybe on any other day I would've listened to General Alphonse's pleas, but today I was just getting so frantic finding the missing girl. Not that the irrational part of my mind recognized that, of course. "Have you checked the dining area?"

"Of course! First place I had checked!"

"Did you check around the training site?"

"No duh!"

"How about the offices?"

"What do you think I'm doing right now?"

"How about the area around the HQ?"

"Up to a two-kilo radius! Now upgraded to five!"

"Did you –"

"What's going on?" an all too familiar voice floated past.

I turned to see Eve walking into the tent. "Uh, Jake, did you have too much to eat recently? Your face is looking a bit red."

"Eve," I responded as slowly and as calmly as I could. "What were you doing and where were you?"

Eve only gave me a strange look replying. "Sleeping. In my tent. Why?"

* * *

"Ha-ha…uh…this is awkward."

Back to my own office. Plus a still-sleepy Eve. Plus a couple of other soldiers, some looking a little bit…mutinous. An expression I haven't seen yet. Well, except the time a while back when Train and Eve first dropped in. At least I'm a bit more loose now. I did not want to be on a report that had my name and 'died honourably from high levels of stress' together.

"Uh…well…now that Eve's here, back to the plan." I put up a big map of the area on the board, then took a metre stick and started pointing all over, like a teacher. "Basically, it's just a standard Tag formation. I'll lead first, and we will push all of our tanks straight in and blast anything in the way, well, out of the way." I was talking pretty quickly now, wanting to get this over with. "The APCs should scatter themselves widely across the field, but within close distance of the tanks." I tapped several key locations on the field. "Try to keep those APCs around these areas, for maximum efficiency."

Now I paused to look around, hoping everyone was following. Most were, I found. "Finally, the artilleries and rocket that we have will then situate themselves inside the APC's movement range, and take aim at the enemy units. That will by my last order of the day. Eve, if you will…?"

Eve stepped forward. Good thing she doesn't look so sleepy anymore. "Once Jake's orders are completed, the first things to do under my command will be the preparation of the artilleries and rocket to fire. Once that is done, start moving the tanks forward. The tanks are _not_ to fire on the already weakened enemy platoons –" this caused some predictable surprise – "but instead are to take on the full ten-man teams. That summarizes our orders for the day."

At this point, only General Alphonse wasn't looking doubtful – but even he was looking a little bit exasperated. He spoke now. "Jake, Eve, you might want to explain…"

"Sorry, General, but that's my little fun," I told the General. Eve rolled her eyes, and the soldiers collectively bore a laser hole in at me, wondering what 'little fun' I was hiding. Well, they would've bore a laser hole if they had laser eyes.

General Alphonse just sighed and stepped forward.

Wow, that's pretty intense. The soldiers, I mean.

"You've heard your superiors," the General told the mass of people in the 'room'. "We are very flexible, however, so the exact details are up to you to decide…"

"C'mon, Eve," I whispered; I scooted around the soldiers, Eve following, out of the tent and towards the stable. Well, it's called a stable, but it's really just where all the unused tanks are parked.

"We're going with them tomorrow," I informed Eve. "You still have six hours of 'field trips' left before you can technically become a full-out CO –"

"Which I don't really plan on becoming. What's wrong with me just being an advisor, anyways?"

"No way, girl, you're going to be a full CO. Especially because _I_ said so." I winked. "What I say goes. That's the way things are around here. Besides, you really need the field experience because –"

Eve completed the sentence for me again. "One, the soldiers will respect me more, and two, so I can get a better feel for the environment they're fighting in. I'm pretty sure I nailed the second bit already, Jake."

"No way. You still haven't been captured by enemy forces and resisted torture for forty-eight hours. You've been missing out."

Eve stopped. She gave me an understandably incredulous look. "You're kidding."

"Am I?" I just winked, again.

"There is NO WAY that in whatever constitution you have in Orange Star any person is allowed to be intentionally subjected –"

"Slow down the machine gun, Eve, and let's roll." I restarted my stroll. She followed.

"What part of _torture_ would be part of a military curriculum? There is absolutely NO WAY –"

"Hey, stop distracting me." I paused at the entrance to the 'stable'. "There was something else I wanted to show you."

"You accuse ME of distract – woah."

That was a fair reaction.

"Isn't that…? What Andy and Hachi made for…?"

"Nope. This one's mine, yours is just based off of this baby."

The object of our topic was not a specific tank, but instead a chunky, ancient-looking piece of machinery that I fondly call –

"Bess?" Eve asked, reading the inscription. "Are you serious? What does it stand for?"

She sounded almost hopeful, like she _wanted_ it to stand for something so she can keep respecting me.

"Hey, can't I name a companion that's been with me for about half my life?"

"…How old are you?"

"Twenty years old."

"…Is there a story?" Still sounding hopeful, I see. I laughed.

"Not a fabulous one. Basically, she's something I made for a science project way back – Bess sure wasn't pretty or working back then. After I came in the army, though, Andy did me a huge favour and fixed her up real good. But I asked him not to change her too much in terms of the way she looked."

Eve shook her head. Judging from her bewildered eyes and complexion, she seemed to have trouble accepting my naming habits.

_It's not like you're not a science experiment… _Okay, I had to bite that mean comment back. Now's really not the time. Instead I said, "Can you tell me what you think it is?"

Under a sharp and critical eye, Bess was examined thoroughly from the outside. "I think I see some sort of grinder in here…but I don't suppose it's used to make food."

"It's a _she_, Eve."

Roll of eyes.

"Noted and ignored."

She in turn ignored my comment, and looked at Bess again. "I don't think you'll let me open _her_ up." She said the word sarcastically. "But it looks like there's a complex process that goes through the inside and out comes…" Now she frowned at the exit point. "Some kind of fluid?"

She leaned in closer and smelled. "I think I smell grass, onions, wheat, and…something else?"

I gave her a second, and bull's-eye. She got it right off the bat. She turned at me with wide eyes. "_Gasoline_?"

I just snickered. Her surprised expression was never boring to watch. "Come on, Eve, you can probably fill the rest."

Another half second later, she got it again. "So this machine turns vegetation into _crude oils_?" Another second later – "_This_ is why you're so good on plains? Not only because of the open field, but because of the abundant supplies of fuel?"

I couldn't stop myself – I just laughed out before I explained the rest. "Bingo! That's the whole basis of my POWERs – to transform grass, wheat, even leftover vegetable oil from fast-food restaurants, into a source of fuel that converts to gasoline and combustibles for movement _and_ range _and _firepower! With accent on the 'fire'!"

"That is so…_conservative_ of you," Eve said, ignoring my bad joke.

"Hey, I'm a hipster, remember? World peace and sustainable energy and all that."

"And drugs, and music, and Marxism, and STDs…" Eve continued dryly.

I scowled. "You _so_ did not go there."

"Then next time, don't confuse hipsters with hippies."

I rolled my eyes. But then I grinned. "All the same, you'll need a crash course on how to install this into our tanks if you're going to kick White Shadow's behind with me. Our assault will commence in little under five hours."

* * *

I think I thought about this before – but here I'll say it again.

War isn't pretty.

"Unit Kingston to area F-24. Try not to be noticed. Unit Laurie to area D-30. Be ready to support the others. Unit Marie to K-29…"

The driver tapped my leg. Smart man, he waited until I turned my radio off until speaking. "Commander Eve's signalling you, sir."

"Very well." I turned on the radio again. "Unit Allan, be ready to fire."

Around the area, five mid tanks, including the one I was in, locked and loaded. The barrels consecutively rose to face a team of somethings that strayed way too far than they should've.

I couldn't actually see the enemy units, but these were the plains we were on. On plains, I made the rules. I knew how things go. And I can tell exactly what's different.

In this case, something was struggling to move through the area. I could hear the loud sounds of an engine, sounds like a…well, a drowning puppy.

"Recons," I said into the radio. "Some recons are trying to get through the area quickly."

I could tell roughly where they were. As if the noise wasn't enough for the tank's on-board lock-on system, a couple of the recons were actually _stuck_ trying to get across a muddy area. Like being stuck in snow, the things probably kept trying to go forward, reverse, forward, reverse…and throwing some mud up into the air that was viewable with the binoculars.

As the leader, I fired first.

When I pressed the trigger, Bess, already loaded with the vegetable remains of breakfast, sprayed out some gasoline on top of the gunpowder inside, and a millisecond later, a spark was ignited inside the barrel. Said barrel concentrated the explosion from the gunpowder/gasoline vapour, and as a result, the tank jumped backwards. But at the same time, a high explosive anti-tank ammo was propelled out of the barrel, flying at over four hundred metres per second and colliding, luckily/unluckily depending how it was looked at, into the armoured back of an unsuspecting recon. I hoped that was enough to at least spare the riders.

It didn't look like it. The invisibility dropped, and the recon was sent flying and flipping forward, before finally landing with a crash about fifty metres from where it originally was. Following that, four more barrels were ignited, colliding around or at the other four enemy recon units – all four flew at least thirty metres from where they were.

I switched on the radio again. "Confirmed kills?"

"Eight, for sure," replied Eve's weary voice. "I thought I told you to fire on the ground right just before the vehicles."

"Not everyone has you and Train's insane accuracy, Eve!" I snapped back. When silence filled air, I sighed. "I take that back. I'll try harder next time, Eve."

I switched off the radio before anyone else can say anything. I looked out through my own binoculars. I thought I could see at least one human survivor in the distance. But the majority was definitely dead.

Reluctantly, I switched on the radio again. "Unit Nadia to J-14…"

* * *

God, these days are long.

At least the infantry units were more active. We kept on moving. In tanks, that wasn't the case. The tank was your safest spot. All the same, I almost wanted to be back in the infantry units, despite the higher mortality rate.

But finally, _finally_, my turn was over. So far, after attacking ten different enemy units, we had sustained three major injuries on our side but no deaths. _This_ was planning.

Eve's piece of machinery was a little harder than mine to install – after all, I've been using Bess for so long. And other Tag partners I had usually hired mechanics to tinker with the systems a little bit.

Eve herself was watching me struggle with her order, while at the same time eating lunch. After ten minutes it must've gotten boring, because she started a conversation.

"Do you think all humans love to kill?"

Glancing up, I said: "If you're referring to my attack on the recons earlier –"

"No, that's not it," Eve said sadly. "When I look at my own idea, I can only think of what I was thinking when I first asked for this."

"It's a good idea, Eve. Whatever else you might think, this _will_ save our friends."

"Oh, that's great. Too bad it can't save our pocket money at the same time."

I had to smile at that one. True, this thing was as expensive as heck.

Eve soon finished her lunch and excused herself. I only worked on this for five more minutes before I finally had it put in, all wires connected right.

Glancing at the model name, I had to wonder who actually names something after their companions after their CO Super Power. I mean, I thought my own Super Power's codename was pretty cool, but not something I actually use to name some_thing_.

I traced the words with my grease-stained fingers.

_Angel's Judgement_.

* * *

"Unit Allan, prepare to fire."

Eve's voice came squawking over the radio set. Well, of course, her voice never really squawks, it was just the radio.

At this point, we were far, far into enemy territory. Only about thirty kilometres north was the enemy HQ. And most of the enemy platoons we've encountered so far were, quite bluntly, shut down.

Eve was still talking. "Eleven o'clock, about two kilometres out. Not much wind. I'll fire first."

Eve's Super POWER was a killer – well, for a better, simpler adjective use, awesome. The thing is, it _guarantees_ the destruction of a unit's mobility and firepower. Before, I told Eve that the science of 'alchemy' was not advanced at all, but then Hachi went ahead and fixed up her machine. I guess money's a huge factor for him.

Anyways, her Super POWER was based off of her own transformative powers. Sorta like my Bess, it converts something into 'something else'; in Eve's case, fuel and ammo into gasoline shells. Really, it was a thing of beauty. The gasoline inside the shell doesn't actually explode on our leisure, but what it _does_ do happens on physical contact, when the shell bursts and the enemy units are dunked with the combustible. They can't use any ammunition at all, or else risk blowing themselves up. Same goes for using the engine. In effect, they're totally restricted from doing anything but getting out and running for their lives.

The only problem that might occur is if the enemy soldiers were stupid enough to actually try. If that happens, the gasoline _will_ blow. Spectacularly. Luckily, none of the enemy soldiers tried at all, especially once they found out what the gunk covering them was.

So far.

_BBOOOOOOOOOOOOMMM_!

That snapped me back to reality.

Hastily I checked that I already loaded the special ammo, had it aimed right, and fired with three other mid tanks.

_BOOM_!_ BOOM_! _BOOM_! _BOOM_!

Five machines suddenly appeared where before there had been nothing. The gasoline covering them outlined their shapes nicely. They were definitely tanks.

"Nice job, people. We'll pick them up later." Eve went back to the radio. "Unit Ian to H-35. There should be a mech platoon to your immediate west. Unit Jarred to B-32. Make sure you support Unit Nadia…"

"Our Commander Eve's really something, ain't she," the driver of my tank said.

"Shouldn't you be keeping watch ahead?"

"Probably, but nothing's going to happen on your watch, Commander Jake."

I laughed. "Wished things were that simple. I'm going up for fresh air."

"Right-on, sir."

I opened up the hatch, taking a deep breath as I popped my head up. Nothing beats the scents on plains.

I took a moment to survey the area around us. By this time, I've started to learn how to locate the telltale signs of invisible ground units. Nothing as specific as Eve's 'shimmers', but mostly displaced engine noises and tracks where they shouldn't be. In the forest areas, they were even more visible, because sometimes tanks just went ahead and plowed down trees.

In this case, I couldn't notice anything out of the ordinary with my binoculars, so I just swept them forward to where the earlier tanks were hit. The enemy units reacted differently. Some just didn't know what to do, so they just sat there, while some others tried to come out of their ruined vehicles and tried to use their machine guns. At least, they probably would've tried, but it was virtually impossible getting out without slipping on _some_ combustible, so every time they came out they just ended up throwing away their guns and surrendering.

When I looked at the unit we fired on earlier, there was nothing unusual that caught my attention. Looks like they were just those who didn't know what to do. At least, that was my conclusion at first.

It all changed when I saw a lone figure leap out of the tank, land gracefully on his feet, and take out…

_Cigarettes_?

For a moment, I panicked. I really thought that he was about to blow himself up. But nothing happened as he lit it up and took a drag.

_What the heck is he doing_…?

That question was answered immediately.

The mystery man tossed his cigarette at his tank, blowing it and all four other vehicles up.

* * *

_Oh, god. Who the_ –

Outlined against the flames, the man seemed eerily familiar. He had short hair, and goggles. The kind motorbikers wear. But what was really creepy was how he seemed to know exactly where I was and what I was doing. He just grinned. It was a sneering grin, like he was the god of this world. He just grinned at me.

And then it hit me – _he's the enemy CO_!

I frantically zoomed straight in, so I could only see his face. Who the heck was he, why was he so familiar, and what was he doing?

Even as I thought these questions, he started speaking, again as if he knew I was straining to stare at him, and as if he knew I knew how to lip-read – which I did.

"Suffer in silence for the next seven years…Taste the power of my Mirror Mirage!"

Oh, god. I think I know what's coming.

"_RRUUUUUUNN_!" I screamed. As I did, I dived back in and started dragging out a protesting driver. I turned on the radio. "UNIT ALLEN, GET THE –"

Too late. With five mighty explosions that seemed like a single, enormous explosion, all five of our tanks were hit by HEATs from the tanks that looked like they burst into flames.

* * *

Not good.

"Private! Private, speak to me. Are you injured?"

The driver could only shake his head. Somehow I doubted his assessment, but for now I took his word for it. I started running for the tanks.

"Hey! Anyone still alive? Answer me!"

Not good. Not good, not good.

"Don't just stand there, Jake!" A voice yelled. "Help me out!"

Thank god. Eve was still alive. Of course, I should've known she would be harder to kill than that.

I quickly ran over. After two seconds of looking, I saw her underneath the barrel of the once proud mid tank. It didn't look like she was stuck, but once I dragged her out, I saw why – she in turn was trying to drag out her unconscious driver.

"Formed a shield," Eve explained to my coming question. "A big one, too, that covered both me and Private Fredrick here, but I couldn't quite form it fast enough or hard enough for both of us to escape unscathed."

"You're both still alive, that's good enough." I glanced towards where the mystery man was earlier, but even without binoculars I knew that his tanks – the tanks we thought were immobilized – were advancing towards us. Still not good.

"Now," I growled, "would be a good time for Train to show up."

"Of course," said a voice right behind me. "It's always a good time for me to show up."

I sure as heck jumped out of my skin. I spun around to see a grinning Train, with the pistol already in his hand, amusement leaking through his eyes.

"Train!" Even Eve was relieved. But then she turned annoyed. "WHAT THE HECK WERE YOU GUYS DOING?"

"Sorry I'm late," he replied, unperturbed. He then raised his handgun and fired nine shots, jamming all of the incoming tanks from advancing any further. He then shot his last three bullets from his POWER Program into units that were somewhere in the distance and definitely out of my sight.

"Anyways, that's the guy I told you about," Train added. "Broken Mirror. Silly name, really, but matches his Super POWER, I guess."

"That would've been useful information _before_ we were attacked," Eve snarled.

"Hey, I didn't learn that bit until recently, alright? Now gimme a break. He's coming right here, and he looks like he wants to talk."

I blinked in surprise, and looked. Sure enough, he was walking calmly to us, ignoring the fact that his tanks and men were left behind.

"Five against one," I muttered. "What's he thinking?"

"He's insane," Eve said at the same time. "We can deal with him here and now."

It was only a silent, thirty second wait until he actually came close enough to talk. "Hello," the mystery man said, unperturbed. "How are you doing?"

"Wait, that's it?" I said, flabbergasted. "The baddest bad guy we met so far and all he is is a curt, civil man?"

Everyone else ignored me as the man kept talking. "That's a very nice POWER you have, Mr. Train. But it's not like you to limit yourself to only twelve shots."

Here Train grinned. "He got me on that one," he admitted. And then he raised his gun again and started firing.

_Bam_!_ Bam_!_ Bam_!_ Bam_!_ Bam_!_ Bam_!_ Bam_!_ Bam_!_ Bam_…

Every single shot missed the mystery man. For a moment I was stunned, but then I realized he was only shooting at more units, units behind and ahead of us.

I took the moment to look more closely at the enemy CO. He had short hair, yeah, and he also had goggles, but he also had a white overcoat that covered his entire body, and white boots. I was surprised they were still white, considering he was an army guy.

His hands were tucked into the pockets of his overcoat, and he was completely relaxed, like he was in complete control of the situation. His face was only looking mildly interested at what Train was doing, and he had nothing noticeable on his face – though, the goggles of his covered his eyes, so I couldn't really say that for sure.

All of a sudden, I realized Train had stopped firing.

"One hundred and eight shots," he was saying. "I can fire eighteen barrels of shots, and one bullet is all I need to immobilize one man. That means one hundred and eight men of yours were shot or immobilized in the last five minutes. That's the strength of my POWER – its sheer flexibility." He grinned, proud of his power – in both senses.

"Very interesting," the other man replied. "And my Mirror Mirage, the most expensive Super POWER Program that ever existed in the underworld, sets up holograms of all of the units I have, as to bait in _your_ units to fire at these holograms, leading my enemies to believe my units wiped out, at which point I of course attack back with my army's full strength." Here he smiled at both Eve and I. "With great success, of course."

Eve growled, and I had to hold her back – I was interested in what he had to say. Plenty of time for Eve to rage later.

"But I am truly curious. In this case, my Mirror Mirage was most obviously defeated, yet that was simply because I was outnumbered. In a direct confrontation, I believe that my Super POWER is much stronger than your abysmal POWER."

Train laughed. "You can't say that for sure. Sorry if it sounds like I'm bragging, but _I_'m the best fighter around these parts."

And the man smiled too. As if that sentence humoured him, as if he had a hidden trump card. "I'm sorry, but since there's two of us, that goes both ways."

His hair was shorter, true, but when he removed his goggles to show his face to a stunned Orange Star audience, there was absolutely no doubt in my mind.

This was also the face of Train.


	8. Revelation

**Disclaimer: Advance Wars belongs to Intelligent Systems and Black Cat belongs to Kentaro Yabuki. I own absolutely nothing in relation to either works, except for the idea to mesh them together.**

* * *

Chapter Seven – Revelation

"Whoa, cool! I look even better than I thought!"

That comment snapped me back from my wide-eyed state. Okay, maybe not _every_one was as startled as I was.

Train was examining himself from a distance, a gleeful expression on his face. "Dang, that guy over there's looking good!" he exclaimed.

The other Train – Broken Mirror – smiled right back. "I agree. I have spent many minutes selecting my visual appearance today, as to make an excellent impression of the man I am."

I raised my hand. "Dude! Major contrast alert! You have Train's face but Eve's words! Not cool!"

Up until that moment, Eve was still staring at Broken Mirror in shock. At my comment, though, she snapped out of it, gave me a glare, and returned her attention to the enemy CO. "Get right to it. Who are you?"

"My dear lady, I believe you may understand even better than I do."

Another glare. This time at him. Then, talk. "In dimensional theories I've come across, a lot say that the soul never changes, even across dimensions. Are you…who 'Train' would be in this dimension?"

"My! You really _are_ the one and same Dr. Tearju."

"Dr. Tearju? She's here, too?" Eve asked warily.

At the same moment, though, a comment ran through my mind.

_That stupid Dr. Tea_!

That was Lash's voice – and I got the 'insult' now. Dr. Tearju, shortened to Tea, was the scientist in charge of the research in White Shadow. She must also be the one who developed the interspatial and interdimensional transporters – and maybe even the one who used it to bring Train and Eve here.

But how was Eve the same person as Dr. Tearju? They're not even the same age, and they have totally different names and ideals. On second thought, so did Train and Broken Mirror, but…

And that led me to Lash's other cryptic point.

_If they even _thought_ he was the same person I knew_…_and that also explains why _he_ was chosen_…

The first part was definitely obvious now – I don't know why I didn't see it earlier. If my superiors had thought that Train was the one and same as the enemy CO, Broken Mirror... Leading from that, the second part suggested Lash thought the reason Train was picked was because _Broken Mirror_ was here. If that's the case, then I guess Eve _would_ have to be the same person as this Dr. Tearju.

Still, there were two more unanswered questions.

How did the technology develop?

And how exactly _did_ Broken Mirror and Dr. Tearju's existence play a role in the selection of Train and Eve?

Luckily for me, the second answer was answered almost immediately.

"Of course she's here. Why else do you think it was you and Train who exist at this point in time and space? It was _our_ DNAs used to bring forth you two. Well, actually mine was inadvertent. Science experiments do have a habit of going horribly wrong."

Eve froze. "What?"

"You heard me. The experiment that we were working on drained too much life energy from our beloved Dr. Tearju. At this moment, she's roughly eighty years old, though her IQ hasn't dipped. When it was trying to find more energy, her machine actually started sucking energy from _me_ before I destroyed it. We're investigating that, by the way. It's always useful to drain someone's life energy over a distance."

The whole time he was talking, his grin just stretched and stretched and stretched, so much that when he said "distance", I could seriously tell he knew full well the implications of the technology and _intended_ to use it.

I take back my earlier comment. This wasn't a curt, civil man – he was just a sick monster. Simply something that exists, something that should be contained.

But for now, he had answers we needed.

"Let me get this straight," I interrupted. "Train and Eve originally came from a different world, because of one of your White Shadow experiments. From that, I see they _can_ be sent back, then. After we own your butts, of course."

To my surprise, the man just snickered. "Are you so sure about that?"

"What do you mean?" I snarled. This just was _not_ a good day to work my brain. What more could be added into the mix?

"Shouldn't it be obvious?" His comment was so snide, I regretted holding Eve back earlier. This guy needs to be torn apart. "It's true that we developed an interspatial transporter, and successfully used it on Javier of Green Earth. But does that necessarily mean we also developed an inter_dimension_al transporter? Or perhaps the _true_ answer is something you already know. Something –" here his expression turned annoyed – "some…_information_ that was guarded insufficiently."

That hit me. Hard.

Eve and Broken Mirror both noticed the change in my expression – Broken Mirror even smiled again. "Ah, I see you realized the subject of my speech. Why don't you go ahead and tell your friends? Or should I even call them _your_ friends?"

"Jake, I am really going to rip his head off," Eve warned, "but first mind explaining? Just so that I don't regret losing a source of intel."

"Vicious, Eve," I said weakly. "If you really want to know, I think he's talking about the third report."

"What?"

"Remember the report I talked about, the first day you came here? The one about Commander Javier being used as a guinea pig for the interspatial transporter? There were two more Level-1 reports that I had to look through that day. The second one talked about the similarities of White Shadow with our former enemy, Black Hole. The third one…"

"Go on," Eve urged, since I paused.

"The third one talked about the furthering of research on manufactured cloning technology that was used by Black Hole. Before, DNA samples and a collection of battle tactics only resulted in clones that could merely follow orders. Now we find that, before Black Hole was totally defeated, they developed prototypes of clones that can actually be independent. And on top of that, their memories…it was possible to manipulate their memories."

Eve…well, she had this expression of surprise on her face. Just as I did, she found the immediate implications of such technology on her situation.

"If that's the case…"

Train spoke. "Are you trying to tell me that I'm only a copy of someone? That all my memories are just fabrications?" One moment of silence. Then a snort. "Yeah right."

I blinked. Eve blinked. Heck, even Broken Mirror blinked in surprise.

"Sorry dudes, but I'm me, and I'm definitely me. If I weren't, then I wouldn't be so sure. I'm the only guy around here who can wield this gun, travel with Eve, get –" here his tone bordered on embarrassed – "splattered with paintballs for not following orders, be really humble and say I can only fire bullets about a hundredth of how far I really can, not to mention run about sixty kilometres in under an hour and, uh, leave my partner in the dust. Probably gonna get splattered with paintballs again with that. But my point is, those are all _my_ characteristics, and mine alone."

Now he turned to Broken Mirror. "If I'm really a clone and you're the original, you must really suck. Whoever heard of a copy that was superior to the original? Besides, how do I know _you_'re not the clone here?"

Broken Mirror, to his credit, maintained an astonished look for only two seconds before he suddenly broke it with laugher. "Ah, the jokes you make," he finally said, wiping actual tears of mirth from his face. "Whatever you may be, whatever you may feel, it all matters not in the face of reality."

But then his expression grew steadily crueller. He reached into his pocket and took out something too small for me to see. "Let's summarize. Your existence, and our visual similarities, can be explained in two ways. One, you are from another dimension and arrived here via theoretical technology. Two, you are clones – mere copies – created from DNA samples coming from Dr. Tearju and I. Let's say, for a moment, the second choice is the correct one. If that's the case, why not build in a failsafe in case the clones actually revolt?"

Another smile. Another cruel, cruel smile. "Let us make a bet. I will press this button, and I bet that once I do the two of you will immediately turn to dust."

Train took it in stride. With a confident smile, he added: "And I bet that the first explanation is true, and the remote you have there is a sham and won't do anything to us. Deal?"

"Deal," Broken Mirror agreed, and pressed the switch.

…Nothing for five seconds…Ten seconds. Nothing.

Train clapped his hands delightedly, like a kid who won a lottery. "Ha! Told ya so! I win, what's the prize?"

Another three seconds, and the enemy CO put his remote back into his overcoat. "_You_ win? My dear me, I believe in this case we actually tied."

Tied? I was confused. I looked over at Train, who was as confused as I was. Nothing was happening at all. Then I looked over to Eve.

And my lungs absolutely, totally constricted.

Eve was staring at her hands. Her face mirrored disbelief. And her hands.

Her hands were already gone. They turned to dust.

And it was progressing.

She swayed. And I reached out a timid hand, and grabbed her shoulder. "Eve?" I whispered. Whispered numbly. Numbly trying to process reality.

Then I was pushed. Not roughly, but firmly. "Eve," Train said softly. He held her tenderly, kneeling down with her when she collapsed onto her knees. "Eve, I'm sorry. I guess I let you down today. But it's okay. Everything will be okay."

Her arms were almost gone. And her legs were just starting to disappear.

Her eyes. Her eyes were filled. Filled with disbelief, and questions. Questions that she might not get an answer for. But one answer she did get. "Train? If I'm just a copy…where will my soul go?"

"To heaven," Train said without hesitation. He smiled. It was a sad expression, but at the same time, comforting. "To the same place all Eves will go."

Her face was already starting to disintegrate. But I think she already made peace. She smiled back, and she closed her eyes and laid her head back into Train's comforting figure before completely turning to dust and was scattered in a lone wind.

At once, Train's posture changed. Now, he covered his face with his arms, not caring that there was a dangerous enemy in the vicinity. And I could feel his expression.

Grief, utter grief.

The other man laughed. A lost soul, a sad soul, had departed, and all he could do was laugh. Laugh hilariously, as if something was funny.

I turned to him. And my expression must have been a dead giveaway, because when he caught sight of me, he said, "Oh, stop looking so unfriendly. It's just one person. I mean, if a million casualties are statistics, so should one. Besides, it was _your_ fault."

I was struck speechless. How dare he? _How DARE he_?

"Really, that's the truth. From what I remember, it was _your_ decision, not hers, to pull out troops immediately after finding my units' invisibility technology. At least, it should've been. She wouldn't have come by herself to the mountains, trying to save sixty doomed men, if _she_ was the one who ordered the units to retreat."

So that's when it happened. I could follow the events clearly: a desperate Eve, someone who didn't want _any_one to die, went up by herself to where she had situated her own rockets to try and save them. Was she subdued after everyone else was killed? Or during the battle? Then, when she was captured, her DNA was taken and used to create a manufactured clone. A manufactured clone with her memory altered, so she would think she's the real Eve. But why even take the trouble to drop the clone off at our HQ?

So that we can't be alerted, true. But I think the real reason is that he just wanted to see us in pain. Seeing the clone die – to us, it was the same thing as seeing the clone Andy die in the last Black Hole war.

So that _was_ my fault, then. But I will not allow any more harm to come on Eve. I gave him an icy glare. "If you touched even _one_ strand of Eve's hair…"

"Yes, yes, I completely understand your threat. Injure the girl in any way and I'll "get it". Don't worry, it will not be harmed, that's the one thing we agree on."

I stared at him suspiciously, his objectifying of Eve forgotten for a moment. Was that a double meaning I hear?

He caught my look and snickered. No, more than a snickered. It was a full-out chuckle. Yeah, there was definitely a double meaning there. And I had a feeling I was about to be told why.

"Do you really not believe me when I said I won't harm it? It's just as interesting to me as it was to you. After all, in this world, it's the first human to be successfully injected with nanomachines! Who are we to waste this scientific study? Not to mention an excellent source of energy?"

I was struck speechless. Again.

"Oops, perhaps I shouldn't have said that." Contrary to his statement, his voice and manner of speaking told me this was a prepared speech. "But since I let it slip, I may as well. Yes, that's right; it's a good source of energy. Young, fit, and most of all, the number nanomachines produced in the body create so much energy that it's practically oozing out. Why not just harness all that excess energy?"

All this time, he kept blabbering. Oblivious to my murderous glares. "Look at my Mirror Mirage! It's all light based. All of my weapons are light-based, and light of course takes _so_ much more energy than sound. And the highest energy form – the best source to take from – is life itself! In the girl's case, not only life energy, but also a source of electrical and magnetic energy! Did you know the very presence of its nanomachines exponentially increased the energy it must create to power itself?"

Here, he paused, and smiled. Just smiled. "And it's not going to need them anymore, so why not just take it all?"

_Bam_!

The gunshot broke the atmosphere, and Broken Mirror fizzed for a moment before he disappeared.

Numbly, I just stared at the spot where he – no, a _projection_ of him – was standing. Then I turned to Train. "Did you notice? When he switched out, I mean?"

I thought he wasn't going to answer me. But then he replied, "When I was firing all those shots. At the time, I thought nothing, but now, I regret it."

His face was dark. Much, much darker than I had ever seen him. His childish complexion was gone, and in its place was a man in his prime just waiting to snatch his prey and rip it to shreds.

I couldn't blame him. I couldn't even say "I'm sorry." I doubted he'd listen.

So instead, I just waited for him to make a decision. He made one quickly. "Let's get back to Rachel," he said, turning and stalking off.

I was about to follow, but stopped. I dropped onto my knees, right where Eve had disappeared, and just shifted and arranged the rocks around me so that I made a circle about the size of a basketball. And then, when that was done, I took the most expensive item I had – no, second most expensive, I didn't think I gun would mean much in this case. But I took the second most expensive item I had, the watch that my father had given me, and laid it in the centre of the circle.

"Peace, Eve," I whispered. "But I'll be back."

* * *

I laid a single flower – a yellow iris, which I thought was appropriate – on the circle I made five days ago. Behind me, Train and eighteen other soldiers watched respectfully.

"Peace, Eve. We'll get you back."

The area was still silent as I stood up, turned back and conversed with Train. "You ready to go?"

"…Yeah. You did enough mourning for the two of us."

Here Train raised his voice. "Listen up, all of you! This is probably our final battle against White Shadow, so stick to the plan and we'll waste them!"

"As for the plan…there is none! Destroy every vehicle you come across!"

"Yeah!" a soldier shouted.

"For Commander Eve!" another shouted after that.

"No," I said quietly. I raised my voice. "For everyone who lived on this world!"

There were more chorus of "Yeah!" and some yelled "Let's move it!" and in all, it didn't take long after that for two upbeat and determined platoons of tanks to start going at it.

Following those two lead tanks, fifty infantry personnel, thirty mechs, twelve more tank units, twenty-five mid tanks, and three megatanks started surging on to rout White Shadow.

No. It was more accurate to say, they were moving to save a fallen comrade.

* * *

When Broken Mirror initially used his Mirror Mirage Super POWER, it definitely took a lot of our people by surprise. Fifteen confirmed deaths and forty people wounded was the final stat we got yesterday. Things definitely would've been a lot worse, though, if it wasn't for Train and Rachel's timely arrival. Train weakened a lot of the enemy attacking units with his POWER, while Rachel commanded her units in Train's place and attacked left, right, and straight ahead.

In conclusion, both sides suffered plenty of losses. Five full days were needed to replenish all of our supplies and get ready for a massive assault on the upper half of this battlefield. Conveniently, the skirmishes that occurred during those five days were large enough to grant both me and Train enough funding for both of our Super POWERs.

The problem with this, of course, is that it probably gave Broken Mirror full funding too.

So it really has come down to this final bet. Whose POWER was stronger, overall? Train's, or Broken Mirror's?


	9. Victory

**Disclaimer: Advance Wars belongs to Intelligent Systems and Black Cat belongs to Kentaro Yabuki. I own absolutely nothing in relation to either works, except for the idea to mesh them together.**

* * *

Chapter Eight – Victory

The silence was unbearable.

We were only about six kilometres from the enemy HQ. And there was absolutely no chatter over the radio. Everyone knew what they had to do. But at the same time, the tense atmosphere could be really…well, taut. It was only looking around, looking around, make sure we don't get ambushed. Considering the invisible units, it was a high possibility. I almost wished something _would_ just go ahead and break the silence. At least we would get a piece of the action that was to come.

But then again, maybe it would be better if we proceeded to the enemy base unscathed. We were definitely going to leave behind some people, if we had to fight our way through.

"Stop," Train's voice said over the radio.

Oh, great. Just when I changed my mind about wanting some action.

Generally, there was a spyhole/peekhole, whatever people wanted to call it, to look outside with. But some models of tanks did come with a surveillance camera with several filters. In this case, it was probably safer to use the camera. Train could shoot accurately with _bullets_, from a revolver no less; I didn't want to find out if Broken Mirror was just as accurate with his lasers. If he had lasers, that is. It seems probable, seeing as his hit was light.

So through the camera I looked. There wasn't much at first, but then out of nowhere Train was suddenly on the screen.

Talk about ninja. Even more so than Eve.

Just as suddenly, Broken Mirror appeared, without his goggles and with his cigarette. There was a quiet gasp from my driver. Understandable, as they looked completely identical, even with hair and cloths differences.

"You're back," Broken Mirror said cheerfully. "Glad you can make it."

In complete contrast, Train had an air of seriousness that I never attributed to him before. His expression was cold and hard, and his posture was relaxed – but relaxed as a tiger does before it pounces onto its prey. "Of course I'm back. I _will_ take Eve back from you."

"Good luck with that. You're probably going to need it." He jerked his head backwards, directly towards his HQ. A tall building that I could faintly see in the distance, even with cloud cover. "She's in there. Though you probably should already know that."

It wouldn't be inaccurate to say his tone of voice sounded extremely snide. He thought he had the complete upper hand, he probably thought he knew exactly how we fought, too. He played his ace, and was confident we only had a king.

But that was his mistake. Train wasn't a king.

He was a Joker.

"Let's make this quick," Train said suddenly. "If I can destroy with your so-called 'Mirror Mirage' and capture your HQ, I win. If I don't, you win. Let's say the time limit is two days."

"Two days? Are you sure you're not being overconfident?"

Train loaded a single bullet in his handgun and cocked it. "Two days are overkill."

He aimed his gun straight at Broken Mirror's head, to which he snorted. No doubt he was another hologram. I double-checked quickly, switching the camera filter over to infrared. Sure enough, though Train was still on the camera, Broken Mirror all but disappeared. Instead, there was a small concentrated pocket of heat on the tree just three metres behind him.

"Do you not remember the mechanics of my Super POWER? I doubt even _you_ could tell which units of mine are holograms unless you are in very close proximity of them, such as our case here. Whether or not you use up all…one hundred eight, was it? Whether or not you use up all one hundred and eight bullets from your Super POWER, at least some of my platoon _will_ survive, and they _will_ wipe out most of your army."

"Two things wrong with that," Train countered. "Even if your Program passes, considering that I'm as much of a military genius as you are, there is absolutely _no way_ your units will do much damage to the army behind me, unless I'm off looking for Eve. Which unfortunately might happen later. But the second problem for you is, you haven't even seen my Super POWER yet."

Oh snap!

Broken Mirror's smile vanished. "Excuse me?"

"That's right. All you've seen so far was my regular POWER. The thing about it is, I can use it multiple times in one day if I still have enough funding. That means, at maximum, I can fire eighteen cylinders worth of bullets in one day. Two cylinders time nine POWERs. That also means that I can cash in all my funds at once to activate a Super POWER. A radically different one."

Train paused. He took aim. "I hope you've heard of the Railgun."

_BBOOOOOOOOMM_!

The discharge was _way_ louder than I thought. That was the first detail my brain registered and it would deal with it belatedly by covering my ears with my hands. But there were other details as well.

The second detail I registered was the bullet travelling through the hologram's left shoulder. Of course, it was only a hologram, so it didn't do much. So I was pretty surprised when Broken Mirror yelled "Ah!" and clutched the exact spot the bullet had passed through. That was when I realized how much of a genius Train was. He had aligned the hologram and Broken Mirror's real position – probably somewhere in his HQ – and shot both of them through the exact same place.

Not necessary, true. But definitely rubbing it in in Broken Mirror's face.

And that was much needed.

Blood was already seeping. I'm actually surprised the shot didn't blow Broken Mirror's whole arm off. He looked directly at Train, hate plain on his face, and cursed at him.

Or at least, I think he tried to. See, the thing about a railgun is, it needs a lot of magnetic and electric force. Which creates strong and lasting fields. Which also pretty much wipes out any electronics nearby, including my surveillance camera.

More importantly, it also paused the hologram so that the image was frozen on that particular moment, plus created a loop of the first sound coming from Broken Mirror's mouth.

"I'm pretty sure you can hear me," Train was saying once I opened the hatch. He also said it over the hologram's looping sounds of "F-f-f-f-f-f-f…" "I want you to know that I _am_ taking Eve back. And you can't stop me, because the magnetic residue left over wiped out the efficiency of any holograms left in my path."

With a final shot, he destroyed the machine casting the hologram, shutting the hologram up and closing our link to Broken Mirror.

* * *

To his credit, despite a shut down Super POWER and a heavily bleeding arm, he fought well. But he was absolutely no match in the face of Train's peaked rage, and he fled.

No, it wasn't just Train. Eve was very much loved by all of our soldiers in the time she commanded them. Everyone was willing to give pretty much _anything_ to get her back.

She'd complain, of course. She'd say that we were wasting lives and blame Train for not stopping it. But deep down, she would be grateful. No one can't be.

As soon as Train was sure Rachel could win on her own, Train headed off. I followed him. After all, Eve was my friend and partner as much as she was to Train.

But leaving Rachel early may have been a mistake.

"I falsified the reports," she admitted to me privately. "I wanted to make sure Train got to Eve quickly. There's really about twice as many units as Train might think there are. In my defence, he would have noticed if he wasn't concentrating so hard on Eve."

I sighed. Sometimes she makes me think I'm the more mature one. But at the same time…"I appreciate your efforts, Rachel. But all the same, keep yourself safe. We can't have you being captured too."

"Hey! Who's the Commander-General here, Jake?"

"You are. But I'm not telling you this as an officer, I'm telling you as a friend."

A pause. "…Thank you, Jake."

And with that, she terminated the radio contact.

"So I maybe made a mistake?"

Drat. So much for keeping it a secret. "It was Rachel's own fault. C'mon, let's keep going."

Train gave me a barely perceptible nod.

"Your gun still okay?"

"It's been better, but at the same time, it's been worse. The last time I used a railgun, the barrel shattered. Luckily, this time it was only the shell and the cylinder. The rest is just fine." And as if to prove that, he smashed open the next door we came across with the butt of his revolver. The door absolutely shattered. The handgun wasn't even scratched.

"This is getting ridiculous," he growled. "How many rooms does this building have?"

"Quite a lot, I'd imagine. But we'd probably know immediately where she is as soon as we look at the door. Whenever the hero saves the princess, the backdrop always has to be acceptable. And – well, what do you know?"

As if to prove my statements true, the next corridor we turned into yielded a very fancy pair of doors at the end. Very fancy, as in big, double sliding doors with clouded glass.

"Fifty bucks that Eve's in there," I said. Train didn't bother taking up the bet. He just rushed forward and all but bulldozed the doors open.

Inside was a complete stainless steel lab. Pretty much the only colour everywhere.

"Okay, I take that comment back. The one about the acceptable backdrop. Someone obviously never heard of fashion in here."

"Backdrop?" a weak voice called out. "Did I miss a conversation?"

_EVE_!

Sure enough, after several more seconds of running and twisting through various machinery, was our angel, tied to a chair and hooked up to some more machinery.

Train immediately destroyed the machine's screen with a well-placed kick. I didn't mention that destroying the screen usually does nothing on shutting it down, so I was the one who pressed the "Off" button while Train was working on untying Eve's bounds. Not that he needed to. As soon as the machine was turned off, Eve turned her wrists into _really_ sharp blades, cutting off the steel chains.

Youch. Don't want _that_ anywhere near me.

I reached for my radio again. "Rachel! We found Eve!"

…No response. Huh? I hope nothing bad happened…

"Train!" As expected, Eve hugged – wait, no, that was completely unexpected. I had not seen Eve appreciate Train before. But it was still a sweet gesture, I guess.

Um, not 'sweet' as in 'cool'. The other sweet.

Train hugged Eve back. "Nice to see you too, Princess."

"Ditto," I added, a big grin on my face.

Eve smiled back.

But…the smile disappeared. She gently pushed Train back and looked at him in the eye.

And to a puzzled Train, she said:

"I'm sorry."

"I don't blame you for leaving," I interjected quickly. "Really, that was my own fault. I should have guessed your reaction. That won't…" Here I paused.

Something was off. Train was still staring into her eyes, almost desperate. He was searching for something. But what?

Eve was staring back. She still had that sad expression on her face. Her posture suggested a…_defeated _manner, something I hadn't seen even when she witnessed her first failure as a commanding officer. Even if she had been captured, I thought she still would have some…_spunk_ left in her.

Something was off. "…Happen again?" I finished. "Um, what's…?"

"You're not Eve."

Train's sentence was spoken so quietly, so resignedly, that I almost missed it. But…how was she not Eve?

"No," 'not-Eve' agreed, just as quietly. "I'm sorry. Who you're looking for isn't here. I don't think…she's even in this dimension anymore."

Something clicked. Something clicked inside my head and my grin disappeared slowly.

"Not even in this dimension?" I echoed. "Then…the other Train…?"

"Not him. He, at least, has a sense of honour. No, the one who took the real me is Dr. Tearju."

Oh, no.

"She was desperate to find something to restore her youth. In the end, she thought her only way back was to use the energy in my original."

Another clone?

"She didn't even bother to erase the memory of me being created. She swapped me with the real Eve, and escaped using a rebuilt interdimensional transporter. And here, energy issues weren't a problem because she sucked life energy straight from my original _and_ me."

Here I noticed Train clenching his hands. And that's when I noticed my own hands were clenched. I undid that, with some difficulty. "…Again," I choked out. "We were duped…again?"

Not-Eve only hung her head. "I'm sorry," she said again. "If it's any comfort to you at all…the other Eve won't die. She can't. She has too much energy in her to run out anytime soon."

"But she'll suffer," Train muttered. He traced the scars on not-Eve's arm.

Wait, scars? "Where did those come from?"

"The machine…is still underdeveloped. Dr. Tearju's face was like this, too, last I saw of her. And the real Eve…I'm sorry. She'll keep healing, but the scars will probably still be there. And she'll get more scars. So long as she's alive, she'll be used. I…I don't doubt that. I'm sorry."

Train was silent. I couldn't see his face. I couldn't tell what he was thinking. All I could think was the resources we wasted, the men we've counted on, all those things spent for someone who wasn't here anymore.

But suddenly, Train hugged Eve again. "I'm sorry." This time it was Train apologizing. "Here I am, thinking of things out of my power, and you're still here."

"What?" Not-Eve seemed surprised. "I'm fine. You should really be worrying about –"

Train pressed a single finger against not-Eve's lips, and shook his head. "Worry about Eve? But in a sense, you're Eve, too. So why shouldn't that apply to you too?" He smiled sadly. That same face he made when he was comforting the first clone. "It's okay, Eve. For as long as you're here, Eve, I'm here for _you_."

Silence. "Thank you," she said finally. "That means…more to me than anything." And she smiled sadly, too.

I couldn't help but pity her. Knowing she was fake, knowing she was artificial, but up until that moment, _she_ was the one who comforted us, telling us what she could about the real Eve. She assumed nothing for her own feelings. She only considered ours.

Just like the real Eve.

No, this _is_ the real Eve. The same memories, at least. The same upbringing, the same experiences, the same knowledge. The only thing different was her lifespan.

I choked. "Wait…your lifespan! You said Tearju sucked life from you too! Does that mean –?"

"Yes," she said sadly. "In fact, my life…is almost over."

To my horror, her fingertips started dissolving. _Again_._ Not again_._ Not again_…

Train hugged her again, pulling her head to his chest. "I stand by what I said. For as long as you're here, I'm here for you, Eve."

And Eve, for maybe the first time I've known her, acted like the child she was. She hugged him back, desperately collecting any comfort she could gather from Train's warm figure. "Thank you. Train."

"You probably won't know this. But I said it to another Eve, once. No matter who you may think you are, no matter who others may think you are…you're still Eve. You'll go to the same place she, and all other Eves, will go.

"Heaven."

Even when the first clone was dying, even she didn't cry. So it came as a little surprise to me when a tear pooled up and dropped from Eve's eyes. "I…I still have all of Eve's memories. And, if it was her in my place…maybe it's not for me to speak. But she would want to tell you…

"You were the best partner any girl could hope for."

And with that last remark, she gave a little sigh, before her whole feature disintegrated into nothing.

Train looked at his hands. The hands that were holding a warm, _living_, human being only moments ago. And he, too, for the first time I've seen him. He cried. He cried for the second lost soul, the second _cherished_ soul, that left this world.

He cried for Eve.

There was, surprisingly, a window in this lab. It was placed just a little behind Eve's chair. And my eyes settled on it when I realized it was snowing.

_Of course. I should have remembered. Today is November eleventh. Is that ironic? Or appropriate?_

I didn't know. I wasn't so good with these things.

All I knew, all I knew was that Eve was gone.

…

Suddenly, and definitely inappropriately, the radio started squawking.

"Jake! We did it! Man, we were so _nearly_ screwed, but Nell showed up with reinforcements in the nick of time! Haha, just look at that Broken Mirror go! Did I mention what a stupid name that is! He's just like a puppy that bit its own tail! Anyways, you can come back now! The coast's all clear!

"…Jake? Hey, Jake, you there? Come _on_, don't let the battery die on me. Jake? Train?

"Eve?"

* * *

Run, run, run. Push, push, push. Run, push, shove, open, and then suddenly I found myself in Rachel's office.

Barely noticing that she suddenly slammed a drawer shut, I rushed forward, and I was almost right up against her face. "Is it true? Train's _gone_?"

"Jake! Personal space! Please!"

"Right, sorry." I hastily repositioned myself a few feet back. "But is it true? Train's gone? He just _left_?"

"Do you find a problem with this?"

"Well, yeah! He's an Orange Star officer! He can't just leave! Besides, how's he going to find Eve without the interdimensional transporter that we're trying to develop ourselves? Knowing him, he's just going to wander aimlessly until Lady Luck decides to be nice! And he doesn't know when that could possibly happen!"

Rachel sighed. She…she sorta looked like she _wanted _to have this conversation. "Look, Jake. First off, he isn't actually a full Orange Star CO yet. Even if he is, he can just resign before walking away. We certainly can't do anything about it."

"But…Eve!"

"Jake, we all hope that Eve is still alive and well, and we can find her some day. But from what you told us, that's not going to happen sometime soon. Train, too. He's a free agent. A stray cat. Maybe it was a mistake, after all, to let him be an Orange Star CO. He's certainly attached himself very well to the army. But you have to remember, he's not a constant. He's an irregularity. Even the rest of us. Andy, Sami, Max, Nell, you, and me. It's not like someday _some_body isn't going to leave or…or get killed. It's always a possibility. And…it's not like Eve didn't lead a good life –"

"Don't say that," I interrupted weakly. "She's still alive."

"Yes," Rachel agreed, though I thought she was reluctant to keep my hopes up. "That's true. But at the same time, it's unlikely we'll see her again anytime soon. You have to accept that, Jake. Some things, you just have to let go."

My mind was reeling. Abandon Train? When it was almost our fault Eve was gone?

…No, Rachel was right. Maybe I was being stupid, after all. Maybe I shouldn't have gotten so attached. She was right. He was an irregularity. Unusual. Fleeting.

But, still…

"You can take a few days off," Rachel said suddenly. "You definitely look like you need to sort through your head."

"Wha – no, I can't do that! The army needs me!"

"The army needs you. I know. But the army needs you to be the best you can be. I'm sorry, but that doesn't seem to be happening right now."

Was that true? Was I that disoriented?

…But at the same time, vacation was what I really wanted. What I desperately needed. Who was I to refuse?

"Fine," I said, depressed. Huh. I'm depressed. Maybe I needed vacation even more than I thought.

I turned to leave. I was at the door when I turned and looked at Rachel straight in the eye. "We lost this time, didn't we?"

"No," she replied sharply. "We didn't lose. This was a victory for us. A huge victory. It's just that…sometimes, victory doesn't come without a price."

And with that, I left the room. But I hung around her door a bit. Thinking.

People are inconsistent, huh. I guess Hachi was one of them. Tired of leading an entire army, he instead turned to humble shop keeping. What had Nell thought when he first retired? The same thing I was thinking now?

I saw General Edward walking around. When he came near, he gave me a half-hearted salute, and kept going. Huh. He was really out of it today.

No, it wasn't just him. This whole place felt down. The people's morale was way off. We can't have that.

Yeah, I failed Eve. In doing so, I failed Train. And, to a lesser degree, Rachel. But like she said, I can't let this drag me down. We have to keep moving. Keep moving forward. We may be depressed, but we'll get over it, eventually. And when we do, we'll then have the strength to look for Eve again.

I may as well use my vacation time, then. Because when I come back, I'll show Rachel. No, think bigger. I'll show the world.

Orange Star will not fall behind.

* * *

It was because I was still thinking, hanging around Rachel's door, that I heard.

"Yuuko-san? I have a wish. There's this man who lost his way…a price?"

Then: "My position."


	10. Epilogue

**Disclaimer: Advance Wars belongs to Intelligent Systems and Black Cat belongs to Kentaro Yabuki. I own absolutely nothing in relation to either works, except for the idea to mesh them together.**

* * *

Epilogue

_It was already early morning. The moon was still viewable, struggling to stay afloat. But it didn't matter to the people inside the shop. The moon was insignificant. It was only a small part of a world._

"_And that's how you came here," the black-haired woman completed._

_The other occupant did not reply to the obvious statement. Only said: "Now?"_

"_Very well then. Let me hear your wish."_

_At long last, the man's back straightened. The moon was falling, but even in its remaining light the XIII tattoo on the man's chest was viewable. "I wish that every 'Eve' there is in other dimensions will remain alive so long as a 'Train' from the same dimension does."_

"_That's a pretty vague wish. Your name, for starters, has an everyday meaning –"_

"_You know what I mean. 'Train' and 'Eve' only refers to their respective persons in each dimension. _One_ respective person per dimension. Any other with the same name is a copycat. A snatcher of names. Not even worthy of mention."_

"_You would dare to go against the Gospel?" The woman's amusement was clear._

"_I have never heard of it," the man retorted._

"_Very well. In this instance, instead of the wording, I will take the meaning of your wish and grant it. Be grateful, Black Cat."_

"_Black Cat?" The man stood up. "Do you honestly believe that a name that brought misfortune to those I love will remain with me? The Black Cat has died, Yuuko Ichihara."_

_And with that, the man was gone with the wind._

"_Is running all you can do, Train Heartnet?" the woman mused. "Run, run, and hope you reach your goal on time? I hope you understand the implication of your actions, Train. Being alive isn't always a gift…"_

_After another moment, the woman stood up, stretching her legs, and walked to the next room. Sliding open the door, she politely asked, "And your answers are?"_

_The occupants – a college professor and an immortal boy – glanced at each other for a moment before returning their attention to their host._

"_If I may," the adult answered. "I'm sorry to say that, despite your intentions, I cannot participate with you. My own world…I am still trying to help bring my own world under control, and to help you on top of that…it cannot be done by me. I'm sorry."_

"_That's all right, Dr. Bergstrom," the woman answered. "I'm sorry to see you leave."_

_The man bowed, and moved out of the room through the wall. Or rather, the portal that was embedded in the wall. It closed immediately after the figure stepped through._

"_I, on the other hand," the boy suddenly said, "can and will help you, on my honour as the last Old One."_

"_Thank you," the Dimensional Witch responded. It would not have been an exaggeration to say that she was grateful._

"_Call me when you need me," he added, stepping into the wall opposite of the one the man had used. This portal, too, closed, after the figure stepped through._

_There was silence. And then, the woman said, "Now for the last guest."_

_Her tone suggested that this last guest was not someone she liked. Indeed, when she opened the adjoining door, there was a scowl on her face._

"_And how about you? What will _your_ answer be?"_

"_What do you think it will be?" The long-haired man countered. "So much for your predictions, Ms. Ichihara. 'Hitsuzen', you say?"_

_The scowl deepened, if possible. "You know as well as I that having this many superpowers in one place increases the number of possible futures by a ridiculous amount. My extrasensory perception, on the other hand, remains untouched. Think your answer, and I'll be satisfied."_

_With a smile, the man complied. And the Dimensional Witch got her answer._


End file.
